Black Lily
by princessangelita
Summary: Bo and Vincent are up to their old tricks when Bo decides to keep one of their victims. Begins about one year before Carly and Co. reach Ambrose. COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Black Lily**

**By Princess Angelita**

**SUMMARY: **Bo and Vincent are up to their old tricks when Bo decides to keep one of their victims. Begins about one year before Carly and Co. reach Ambrose. VINCENT/OC

**RATING:** M for gory violence, language, drug use, and sexual scenes. You know, all the good stuff.

**DISCLAIMER:** I don't own House of Wax or its characters. I only own this story and all original characters. I'm not making money off this, so please don't sue! 

**Chapter 1**

It was a cold, rainy night in Ambrose. In the House of Wax, Vincent Sinclair was putting the finishing touches on a new wax figurine . . . a young white woman who had strayed into Ambrose the night before, along with her husband. Her glazed eyes watched him fearfully as he touched up the pink paint on her cheeks.

"Is she done yet?" his brother Bo asked as he strode into the room.

Vincent surveyed his work one last time before nodding.

"Good. I'm starved. Want some dinner? We've got canned chili beans and canned noodle soup."

Vincent shrugged. "None."

Bo rolled his eyes. "You are such a freak, Vince. I take it you're going swimming?"

His brother nodded. "Water feels good."

"Feels good on your deformed ass face, you mean. I can't believe you actually have the balls to take the God damned mask off." Bo smirked and lifted his shoulders. "I'll be at the house."

Vincent took another look at the woman before heading down to his workshop to put away the paint. He took off his shirt before carefully peeling the wax mask off his face and lying it down on the workbench. He stared at it for just a moment before blowing out the candles that lit up the workshop and leaving.

The frigid air went unnoticed by Vincent, as scantily clad as he was. After years of bathing in the cold, he hardly felt it. He walked slowly down the mile long path to a small river that he had loved even as a child. To him, the river was peace and solitude and even a small measure of happiness. In the night, bathing in the cold water, he could forget he was deformed, he could forget he was lonely, he could forget the hurt and pain he felt when his own flesh and blood made fun of him.

He paused for a moment at the edge of the river, listening to its humming roar before pulling off his boots, pants, and underwear. Vincent walked slowly into the water, reveling in its freezing depths. When he was in up to his chest, he turned to walk up the middle of the river, fighting the current as he did every night. He had walked about half a mile when he noticed there was something wrong.

The water was red.

The color of blood.

He stood still, wondering what was going on, when suddenly the dead body of a much younger man floated by him. Vincent stared hard at the lifeless corpse, its unseeing brown eyes staring up at the sky. The teenager's throat had been sliced open, revealing the reason why the water was red. But that meant he had been killed only moments before. It also meant whoever had killed him was more than likely still there, and had a weapon.

And Vincent's knife was half a mile down river, hanging from his belt.

He turned, hoping to get back before whoever was out there noticed him.

But he was too late.

A girl raised her head from the water just in front of him. For a moment, Vincent thought of a story his mother used to read him, about water nymphs in a shady glade. The girl certainly looked like one. Her black hair streamed down the sides of her face, covering her naked breasts. Her porcelain skin glowed grey in the moonlight. She stared at him with huge dark blue eyes.

Vincent's gaze ran over her body, settling at her full, pink lips. There was a large hunting knife between her white teeth.

They stared at each other for several minutes before the girl dipped back under the water and disappeared.

Vincent turned around and around, watching and waiting for her to come up out of the water. But she didn't. It was like she had disappeared. He heard none of the sounds he expected to hear . . . someone pulling on clothes, a car starting up. After listening for another half hour, he turned and swam back to the place he had left his clothes. He hurriedly pulled them on and jogged back to the house he and Bo shared, keeping his ears and eyes open for any sign of the girl.

Slamming the door of the house, Vincent hurried inside. The smell of burning chili beans invaded his nostrils and he snorted with disgust. Bo leaned out of the kitchen door.

"What in God's name are you slamming the door that hard for? Tryin' to make me think the cops are here, you fucking freak?"

Vincent shook his head. "People," he rasped.

Bo nodded. "Lester came by just a few minutes ago. He's keepin' an eye on them. There's two boys and three girls."

"One is dead," Vincent said.

Bo glared at him. "You've already started? Why the hell didn't you wait for me?"

"No. The girl killed him. I saw her."

Bo's brown eyebrows rose sharply. "You're tellin' me that one of those girls killed someone?"

Vincent nodded and described what he had seen.

"Are you fucking with me?"

"No."

Bo began to laugh. "Ain't that a bitch. Anyway, food's on the stove." He began pulling on his boots. "I'll go check them out, and we'll get them tomorrow. Lester's already shot out one of the tires on their car, so they ain't going anywhere."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_The next morning . . . _

"God damned engine."

Bo stood up straight, wiping his hands with a cloth before slamming the hood of his truck down. Tossing the cloth onto the hood, he strode into his auto parts store to grab a beer from his mini fridge. As he took a large gulp, he glanced out the window to see Lester walking up the street. At his side was a young woman. Bo grinned as he eyed the girl. Plump and pretty, the girl had light brown eyes and straight auburn hair that fell past her shoulders, held back by a blue hair band. Her tight black jeans showed off curvy hips, while her blue T shirt stretched tightly against large breasts.

Behind Lester and the girl, another girl came huffing along the path. She, on the other hand, was _not_ pretty at all, being short and extremely fat.

"_Bitch probably weighs at least two hundred fifty pounds!" _Bo thought to himself, making a face as he watched her.

The girl's face was red and puffy, making her watery blue eyes look smaller than they actually were. Her dirty blonde hair, pulled back into a ponytail, looked as if it hadn't been washed in weeks. Bo gagged as he stared at her enormous bosom and stomach, jiggling back and forth in the hot pink tube top dress she had somehow squeezed into.

Bo forced a pleasant expression on his face as he glanced at his brother, then at the thinner girl.

"And who is this gorgeous piece of ass, Lester?"

The girl raised an eyebrow at his question.

"She's lookin' for someone, she says," Lester chuckled, exchanging a look with his brother.

"She is, eh? Well what else can a gentleman do but help?" Bo asked. "What's your name, doll?"

She stared at him with a disgusted expression and leaned on the truck, trying to catch her breath. "Vera."

"Vera. Now ain't that a pretty name," Bo said. He glanced at Lester. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

Lester shrugged. "Catch you later, Bo." He took one last look at Vera and left the way he had come.

"Now, who were you looking for, Vera?" Bo asked, sliding next to her. "Was it me?"

Vera laughed as the fat girl rolled her eyes. "What makes you think that?"

Bo's eyes glinted angrily. "Now you're makin' me feel bad."

Vera shrugged. "Well I'm not from these parts, so I'm not really informed about what not to say to hillbillies so I don't hurt their feelings."

Bo fingered the knife hanging from a sheath on his belt, making sure she could see.

The fat girl's eyes widened and she took a step back. "Maybe we should go, Vera."

Vera glared at her. "Quit being such a baby, Jessie."

Jessie's stomach jiggled as she took another step away from Bo.

"Anyway, I'm looking for someone," Vera continued. "For my brother, Victor. He disappeared last night and we can't find him."

Bo laughed, remembering what Vincent had told him about the dead boy in the river.

"What's so funny?" Vera asked angrily.

"Nothing. So you're lookin' for your brother, eh?"

Vera nodded, frowning. "Yes. He got into a fight with his bitch ass girlfriend and stormed off. Haven't seen him since. I thought he may have come here."

"Katrina _is_ a bitch," Jessie put in.

"Yes, I've already covered that," Vera snapped.

Bo raised an eyebrow. "Katrina's the girl with black curly hair, isn't she?"

Vera looked shocked. "How did you know that?"

"It just so happens that she came here late last night, wanting me to get rid of some . . . _trash_."

Jessie gasped. Vera stared.

"What do you mean?" Jessie asked.

Bo shrugged. "She wanted me to go down to the river and pick up some trash. It was some heavy trash, too. Smelled pretty bad. Like a fresh kill was in there."

Vera and Jessie exchanged fearful glances.

"Where did you put this trash?" Vera asked.

"Over in the basement at the House of Wax," Bo answered, pointing to the biggest building in town.

Minutes later, he led them through the doors. Vincent was waiting with some rope.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"I can't find the second guy, Bo, but I did find the other boy and girl out there in a tent," Lester said, wiping his sweaty brow with a filthy rag.

"That's because that black haired chit beat us to it, according to Vince," Bo answered with a grin.

Lester's eyes widened. "You mean we're killin' a killer?"

"Seems that way. Pretty big fun, huh?"

Lester laughed. "It's all fun for me. Where are the other two?"

"Down with Vincent. He's getting the wax melted and ready. We'll have time to get the others before he begins his work."

"Fine with me. It's gettin' dark. I'm going to go check my traps."

Bo shrugged. "Later, Lester."

He rubbed his rumbling stomach and went over to Vincent's workshop. The girls cried out behind the rope in their mouths as they saw him. "Boo!" he shouted, making them burst into fresh tears.

"Vinnie-boy, I'm too hungry to get the other two," Bo said to his brother, who was sorting iron tools. "You go get them."

Vincent turned around with a sigh and pointed to the wax, which hadn't yet been melted.

"Just go, goddammit," Bo ordered. "I ain't got time to do every damned thing."

Vincent nodded and watched his brother hurry back upstairs. With another sigh, he picked up a crowbar and a butcher knife, placing them in his work belt before trudging up the stairs and out into the dimming sunlight.

It didn't take him very long to find the broke down car the teenagers had come in, from there it took only moments to see the tent. Vincent hid behind a tree as he listened for any movement. Once he decided that the two that were supposed to be there were either gone or asleep, he walked stealthily towards it.

The sun was setting right behind the tent. Its light created shadowy figures inside the tent. Vincent froze when he heard a female voice speaking softly.

"I told you I was going to kill him," it said.

"Yes . . . but . . . but . . . I didn't think you actually . . ." a male voice cried, sounding terrified.

The girl laughed softly. "I did. With this."

From the shadows inside, Vincent could make out a female figure. It looked as if she was holding up a large knife.

"J . . . Jesus Christ, Kat!" the male voice shouted.

"You're such a pussy, Greg. That's why I don't trust you."

"What do you mean?"

At that point, Vincent decided to try to see inside. The door of the tent was only halfway zipped up. The girl stood with her back to him, black curls hanging down to her waist. A teenage boy with brown hair and eyes was reclining on a sleeping bag on the floor. He had a look of fear and nervousness on his face as he kept his eyes on the knife in the girl's hand.

"I mean, Greg darling, that I can't trust you," the girl called Kat said.

Vincent could tell she was smiling.

"That means, Greg, that I'm going to have to kill you too."

"Wh . . . What? Katrina, you don't . . ."

Katrina shrugged. "No choice, Greg. Sorry." With that she leaped forward, straddling the young man. At the same time, she raised the knife with both hands and plunged it into Greg's abdomen. She stabbed him again and again, completely disregarding the blood pooling onto the canvas floor and spraying onto her body.

Vincent stared at her in awe. He watched as she stood up slowly, kicking the body for good measure.

"Stupid bastard," she said with a laugh.

She turned around and saw Vincent.

"Oh, it's you," Katrina said without a hint of fear. "You kind of caught me at a bad time. I look a fright." She motioned towards the blood all over her shorts and blue T shirt.

Vincent remembered the reason he had come and stepped inside the tent, drawing his own knife.

She grinned at him, to his utter shock.

"How nice of you. I didn't know you came all the way over here just to help me get rid of this piece of shit's body."

Vincent shook his head. _"She doesn't get it. . ."_ he thought. He tried to lunge at her, but she was too quick for him.

Katrina laughed. "Come on now. I'm a little tired, you know. Killing two people in twenty four hours is too much for me. My granny always said I was only a little wisp of a thing. I think if I have to kill you too, it may just completely wear me out." She smiled at him. "I wouldn't want to rid the world of someone as handsome as you, anyway."

Vincent stared at her. _"She's crazy!" _he thought.

"If you don't mind . . . um . . . what is your name, by the way?"

"Vincent," he replied without thinking. _"Why the hell did I tell her that?"_

She grinned. "Okay. Vincent. Hot name for a hot guy. Anyway, I want to go wash. Do you mind escorting me back to that beautiful river we met at last night?"

He thought for a moment before nodding. _"It will save me time having to wash her body later."_

"Why thank you," Katrina smiled, tucking her arm in his.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"So why do you have a mask on today?" Katrina asked as she wrung water out of her hair.

Vincent shrugged. He was still getting used to the idea of the way this victim was acting.

"I like you better without the mask," she continued before braiding her wet locks into a single braid. She stepped out of the water, reaching for the towel she had made him hold.

"Why?" Vincent asked, trying not to stare at her nakedness.

"You don't look fake."

He thought for a moment. "But I . . ."

"You have a tiny little problem, that's all," she said, pulling on some clothes. "Lots of people have problems. A kid I know back home has a big fat mole on her face, with a hair sticking out of it. That's a lot grosser than you, Vincent."

"But . . ."

"But nothing. Just shut up and listen to what I'm saying."

He was silent, thinking hard.

"Okie-dokie," Katrina said with a smile. "I'm all done. So after you were going to kill me, where were you going to take me? I wanna see."

Vincent was completely taken aback. _"I'll let Bo handle this . . ." _he thought, watching her skip up the riverbank. _"Too bad she's going to die. I rather like her."_

_Back in Ambrose . . ._

Bo stood on the porch of his house, tapping his foot impatiently. _"Where the fuck is that bastard freak?"_ he thought, squinting in the darkness. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two shadowy figures emerging from the woods. He turned to see Vincent, accompanied by a beautiful girl that could be none other than the infamous Katrina walking out of the path Vincent took to the river.

Bo's eyebrow shot up, wondering what the hell was going on.

The girl was short and thin, with small breasts and flared hips accentuated by the tight black silk tank top and short sparkly denim skirt she wore. Her hair cascaded down her back in black curls almost to her waist. Her face was pale, with a pointed chin, full lips, and huge slanted dark blue eyes.

He grinned. "This one's definitely going to be played with first," he said quietly to himself as he stepped off the porch to greet the pair.

"Wow, you guys are twins!" Katrina said happily, pulling herself up to sit on the porch rail.

Bo glanced at Vincent, who shrugged.

"And you are?" Bo asked.

"Katrina. You can call me Kat."

"I'm . . ."

"Bo . . . yes, yes, I know your name. Vincent told me. But I think I'll call you Bo-Bo, it's much cuter."

Bo's mouth dropped open. He stared at the girl in confusion. Behind him, he heard the raspy chuckle of his brother.

"I'm looking for someone, Bo-Bo," Katrina continued.

Bo regained his composure. "I wanna show you somethin' downstairs," he told the girl, thinking that things should move along.

He was absolutely shocked when she started to laugh.

"That had to mean one of two things," she said, still laughing. "One, you're trying to come on to me, or two, you're trying to lure me down there so you can do something mean like rape me or kill me. Either way, Bo-Bo honey, that line was terrible. If you're trying to come on to me, that was cheesy as hell. If you're trying to kill me or something, you couldn't have been more obvious."

Bo had nothing to say to this. Never had a victim acted this way before.

"Anyway, Bo-Bo, I'm looking for someone. Two girls, one fat and annoying, the other skinny and annoying. Some smelly guy met them out at the camp and walked off with them."

"It's rude to . . ."

"To call someone smelly? Yes, I know. But it's also rude to smell so bad no one wants to be around you. What do you have to say about that, Bo-Bo?"

Bo was taken aback. His fingers played listlessly with his knife. "Who did you say you were looking for?"

"Two. Girls. Fat Bitch and Skinny Bitch," Katrina said, running a finger along a silver ring stuck in her pierced navel. "God, you boys look just like each other, but already I can tell one of you got all the brains."

"Just like me? Vincent?" Bo asked in horror. "That deformed freak doesn't look like me."

"That wasn't very nice, Bo-Bo. Especially since Vincent is a lot better looking and much nicer than you."

Bo laughed so hard he choked. "I don't think you know Vince too well if you think that, darlin'."

Katrina just smiled. "Maybe. Anyway, where are the two bitches? I've got something I'd like to say to them. But you'll have to excuse me when I say that you guys can't watch what I'll do to them. I'm already in trouble with Vinnie here. He caught me doing something _bad_."

Bo began to laugh. "What the hell were you doing that Vincent would call bad?" He glanced at his brother, waiting for an answer.

Vincent moved his arm up and down in a stabbing motion.

"Vin-_cent_!" Katrina cried. "You weren't supposed to tell!" She leaned in closer to Bo. "I _killed_ somebody, Bo-Bo. Aren't I just the baddest little girl?" She grinned over at Vincent. "Maybe Vincent should punish me. A spanking would be rather nice."

Bo burst into wild laughter as Vincent's neck turned beet red. He slapped his leg in amusement.

"What's so funny?" Katrina asked innocently.

"Come this way," Bo said, still laughing. _I'll take her down to the workshop and let the freak kill her while I watch,_ he thought.

Katrina and Vincent followed Bo through the town to the House of Wax. She smiled as he opened the door for her.

"Ladies first," he said, grinning.

She walked in and drew in her breath. "This is beautiful," she whispered. "Vincent did you do all this?"

Vincent nodded. "How . . ."

"How did I know? Easy. You have artist's hands, sweetheart."

Bo smirked as Vincent's neck turned rosy again. "Him and our ma did this place up. Now come on, I'll show you where the _bitches_ . . . as you like to call them . . . are."

They walked down a few corridors before stopping at a trapdoor in the wax floor.

"After you, darlin'," Bo said with a smirk.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Katrina rolled her eyes and made her way carefully down the stairs. She found herself in a room that smelled of wax and blood, filled with paint cans, brushes, and strange tables and instruments, lit only by candlelight. At the far corner, two figures huddled together. She could hear faint sobs coming from them.

"Vincent, is this where you do your work?" Katrina asked, turning to cup his wax cheek with her hand.

Vincent looked down at the girl, a warm feeling rising inside him. He glanced over at Bo, who was watching with a murderous glare.

Bo raised an eyebrow and made a motion meaning _Get on with it. Kill her already._

Vincent shook his head at Bo before turning his attention back to Katrina.

"Yes."

She grinned. "And let me guess, the bitches are over . . ." She paused and tiptoed around his work table, moving towards the figures in the corner. "Here!"

The two frightened girls screamed as they saw her.

"Boo!" Katrina cried, laughing as they screamed again.

Bo and Vincent exchanged glances.

Katrina, clutching her stomach with laughter, turned to the brothers. "So which one of you tied these bitches up?" she asked. "I wanna give him a kiss."

Bo burst into laughter. "You're going to kiss Vince?"

Katrina clapped her hands. "Oh yay!" She skipped over to Vincent with a huge smile on her face. "You have to take your mask off, though."

"Dear God girl, you're disgusting!" Bo cried, pretending to gag.

Ignoring him, Katrina poked Vincent in the ribs. "Take it off!" she ordered.

Vincent shook his head.

"Just do it, Vince," Bo laughed.

Vincent clenched his fists before letting out a great sigh. Slowly, he took off the mask to reveal his deformed face.

Katrina smiled at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Here you go." She pulled his head down and pressed her lips against his.

"_Dear God in heaven . . ."_ Vincent thought as her warm tongue pushed its way into his mouth. He couldn't help but let out a moan as she pressed her body against his.

When she pulled away, Vincent almost fell. He clutched at the work table for support.

Bo fell to the floor, he was laughing so hard. "That's it," he moaned, trying to catch his breath. "We're keeping this one. I've . . . I've never laughed so hard in my life!"

Katrina beamed at him. "I get to be kept?" she asked. "Like a pet? Can I be a kitty?"

Bo fell backwards onto the floor in a fresh peal of laughter.

"I'll purr like a kitty if _you_ pet me," Katrina added, smirking at Vincent who immediately turned red and choked.

After taking several gulps of air, Bo pulled himself up off the floor. "Kat, darlin', _please_ don't make me laugh again. I've got to go check the generators or we'll not have electricity tonight." He motioned towards the two girls still huddled in the corner, watching the proceedings with terrified eyes. "You're gonna have to make yourself useful, so help Vincent here with those two."

"You sure you want them dead? You wouldn't like to pork them first?" Katrina asked.

Bursting into laughter again, Bo leaned against the doorway. "Damnit, Kat, that's _enough_. The fat one doesn't need anything that has to do with the word pork, she's fat enough already. But the other . . ."

"I'll be sure to make Vera watch us kill Jessie, and then I'll bring her up to you," Katrina promised. "You can pork her as much as you want. Why don't you call up the smelly one and have him pork her as well."

This was too much for Bo. He sank to the floor again, laughing so hard he shook. "God I'm glad we're keepin' you, darlin'." He clutched at the door frame, pulling himself up. "Now really, no more of this. I've gotta go." He held onto the sides of the wall as he walked upstairs, leaving Vincent and Katrina alone with the two girls.

"We'll have lots of fun together, won't we Vince?" Katrina asked, twirling a curl around her slim finger with a smile.

Vincent, still reeling from the kiss, merely nodded.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"You goddamned bitch!" Vera shouted the moment Vincent pulled the rope from her mouth. "You've been in on this!"

Katrina laughed. "Nope, Vince and I have just met. But let me set the record straight for you, Ver. He does kiss a hell of a lot better than your piece of shit brother. And he knows to keep his hands to himself."

"You're disgusting!" Vera cried. "Where's Victor?"

"I slit the pig's throat and let him bleed out like the animal he was. Even for a cannibal, his filthy carcass would have been too gross to eat."

"You're a cannibal?" Vera asked in a small voice, apparently more disgusted by that than the fact that her brother was dead.

Katrina rolled her eyes. "You are incredibly stupid, Vera. I didn't say _I_ was a cannibal." She heard Vincent chuckle behind her and smiled. "If I was, though, I'd eat Vincent." Turning to give him a wink, she added "Or parts of him, anyway," looking pointedly at his crotch.

Vincent could handle no more of her innuendos. He turned around quickly and began heating his wax so she couldn't see how nervous he was. To his shock, he felt her body close to his.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her gaze fell on the wax. "Good God, is this how you make those wax figures upstairs?"

He swallowed hard, thinking she was disgusted by him. The warm feeling he had before when she kissed him fell away completely.

"This is _great_!" Katrina exclaimed happily.

His meager confidence returned. _"So she isn't disgusted . . ."_

"Is every figure upstairs a real person underneath?"

Vincent nodded at her, stirring the wax carefully.

"So how do you do it? Are you going to do it to them?" she asked, nodding towards Vera and Jessie. "Can I watch? Can I _help_?" Her eyes widened. "Can we make Vera _bald_?"

Vincent smiled at all her questions. "You can help."

She grinned. "What do I need to do?"

"Stir."

Katrina took the huge wooden spoon from him and struggled to stir the wax. He watched for a moment, noticing that she needed something to stand on. He pulled a box out from underneath the work table and lifted her up onto it, picking her up by her waist like a child.

"There," he said.

"Thank you," Katrina said, stirring with a look of utmost concentration.

He nodded once and began to wash off his worktable with a mixture of vinegar, soap, and water, noting that she needed two hands to stir while he needed only one.

Katrina wrinkled her nose. "That smells horrible. What is it?"

Vincent cleared his throat and told her what was in it.

"Why do you need to use vinegar?"

"It cleans the table better."

"Oh."

When he was done cleaning, Vincent glanced over Katrina's shoulder to check on the wax. "All done," he told her.

"What do I do now?"

"Watch."

Vincent poured the wax into a much larger vat, stoking the fire beneath it. "Must pour a little bit at a time. Can't melt such a large amount all at once. It will burn." He cleared his throat again, not used to talking so much.

She smiled at him knowingly. "This is probably the most you've talked at once in a long time, isn't it?"

He nodded. "More now than all of the past year."

"I take it Bo's not one for a conversation."

"No." He hesitated for a moment. "He just talks a lot."

Katrina watched as he poured more wax pebbles into the smaller vat and motioned for her to stoke the fire underneath it. She did as she was asked, and when the fire began to melt the wax, he handed her the spoon. They melted several more vats of wax before Vincent pronounced them ready to proceed.

With a loud grunt, Vincent tipped the large vat of wax over, pouring the liquid into what looked like an enormous pressure cooker. When he was finished, he walked over to Jessie and Vera. "Which one?" he asked.

Katrina laughed as the girls began to sob. "Jessie, of course. Remember Bo wants to pump Vera full of Bo juice."

Vincent laughed at this, at the same time blushing furiously. Vera looked absolutely disgusted.

"So?" Katrina began. "Let's lift the fat ass up here."

"No. Lifting her will hurt you."

Katrina smiled. "Always the gentleman."

She watched in amusement as Vincent heaved a shrieking Jessie onto the work table. "Do you think we should give her some liposuction before we do this? Or do you need a fat chick in your museum?"

"What is liposuction?"

"Are you kidding? You know how to turn a woman into a wax doll, but you don't know what lipo is?"

He stared at her in confusion. She sighed.

"If a bitch is really fat and has money and wants to lose weight fast, she goes to the doctor and he sucks the fat out of her with a special vacuum. It's called liposuction."

He bit his lip thoughtfully and stared down at Jessie.

Katrina grinned. "Are you . . ."

"Why not?"

"How will we do it?"

Vincent thought for a moment. "There's a shop vac in the closet."

Katrina burst into amused laughter. "Does it have attachments?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"This isn't working," Katrina said, watching as Vincent pulled the shop vac's hose attachment out of Jessie's stomach.

He nodded in agreement. "No, it's not."

She scrutinized the knife wound Vincent had made to put the attachment in. Jessie squealed with pain and fear. "Wow, she's still alive," Katrina commented. "But this is just taking up time. I want to make her a wax dolly now."

Vincent took an iron cup of hot wax and poured it carefully into Jessie's wound to stop the bleeding. Jessie let out an ear-splitting scream of pain. Katrina burst into laughter.

"I just love it," she said, grinning. "Too bad we can't pour it down her throat. That mouth of hers has caused me no end of trouble."

Vincent shook his head. "She will die too soon. This will be better." He handed her a pair of scissors. "Cut off her clothes."

"Eeww! You mean I have to see this fat ass naked?" she asked.

He smiled at her and shrugged.

She took a deep breath and began to cut. It took no time at all to cut through the tube top dress. "Oh my God, I think I'm going to puke," Katrina moaned. "Vin-_cent_! She's not wearing underwear!"

Vincent walked over and made a disgusted face.

"Who the hell did you think you were looking good for, you fucking fat ass bitch?" Katrina asked.

"G . . . Greg!" Jessie moaned, choking out sobs.

"You two would have deserved each other," Katrina commented. "Too bad he's dead. And you will be dead soon, too. So don't worry. You might meet up in Hell."

Jessie screamed and tried to fight her way up.

Vincent hurried over, a syringe in hand, and injected the terrified girl with a substance that made her immobile.

"She'll still feel the pain, right?" Katrina asked anxiously.

Vincent nodded. "Every bit."

His companion grinned. "Now what?" She was given a bucket of water and a rag. The two of them began to wash off Jessie's body. "This is sickening," Katrina moaned. "What if I lose a hand inside all this fat?"

It didn't take long for them to finish washing the girl. Vincent picked Jessie up and placed her upright in what looked like an extra large shower with lots of shower nozzles.

"What does this do?" Katrina asked.

"Watch."

Katrina watched in fascination as hot wax began streaming from the nozzles, covering Jessie completely. Vincent glanced at Katrina sideways, noting her reaction. Her eyes were wide, her mouth was open a little to accommodate the short little panting breaths she was taking. The jugular vein on her throat throbbed rapidly. One hand clawed at her neck as if her breath was too much for her. All this, Vincent noticed, was from excitement. He realized that she was just as excited as he got when working with the art form he loved. She was also clearly just as sadistic as his brother.

When Jessie's body was completely coated, Vincent turned off the shower. He stepped inside, holding a small paddle, and proceeded to shape the wax into the shape he wanted. He climbed out, smiling at Katrina.

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Wait. It must dry before we can put it on the table."

"I'm hungry."

"We can eat while we wait. Come on."

"Should we bring Vera?"

He nodded and walked over to the petrified girl, who by now had completely snapped. Vera's mouth opened and shut like a fish, her wide eyes were glazed, and she kept pointing to Jessie's body. She whimpered as Vincent picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.

Katrina followed Vincent up the stairs and out of the House of Wax into the darkness. "I didn't realize it was so late," she commented. "Are we going to where you live? You don't live in that basement, do you?"

"No. With Bo, in the house." He pointed to the biggest house in town.

"Will you go back down to work on Jessie after you eat?"

"Yes."

"Can I go back with you?"

"Yes."

They walked up the derelict porch and into a dingy house. Bo was sitting on a yellowing couch, watching _I Love Lucy _reruns on the 1950's television.

"Done already?" he asked in his drawling voice.

Vincent shook his head and deposited Vera onto the couch beside his brother. Bo grinned and tugged on a lock of the girl's hair.

"Can you wait until after we eat before doing that?" Katrina asked.

"Does it disgust you, darlin'?" Bo asked.

Katrina laughed at him. "Not it. Her."

Bo shrugged. "Then I'll take this upstairs." He stood up, pulling Vera up with him. "There's food in the cupboard."

Vincent beckoned to Katrina and she followed him into the kitchen, intent on finding something to eat.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Vincent and Katrina sat at a rickety table in the kitchen, eating bowls of canned beef stew.

"Is this all you eat?" Katrina asked.

"Stew?"

"No, canned stuff."

Vincent paused for a moment, listening to Vera shriek upstairs.

"_If you hold still, this will all be over sooner, darlin'," _they heard Bo say.

Katrina rolled her eyes.

"We eat canned food most of the time," Vincent said when the noise died down a little. "We eat fresh meat when Lester brings it."

She took a bite of stew. "What kind of meat?"

"Deer or rabbit mostly."

"I've never had either."

"Deer is good."

Katrina opened her mouth to reply when she was interrupted by Bo striding in, a look of glee on his face.

"That was fast," Katrina said.

"I'm a one-pump chump," Bo answered, grinning. "But don't worry, darlin'. There's a whole night ahead of me."

Katrina laughed. "So . . . where am I to sleep?"

"With one of us, if you want a bed. Otherwise, there's the couch," said Bo.

"I'll stay with Vince, if he doesn't mind," Katrina told him, raising an eyebrow. "I think your room is a little too noisy for my taste, Bo-Bo." She glanced over at Vincent. "Do you mind?"

His eyes were wide, the spoonful of stew he was bringing to his mouth was frozen in mid-air.

"Vince, you're a sight," Bo laughed.

"Do you mind?" Katrina asked again.

Vincent shook his head.

"Well, that's settled. Now, if I'm going to be staying here, there's going to have to be some changes," Katrina continued.

Bo leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "What do you mean, darlin'?"

"For one, if you don't mind, I would like to clean up this house a little. And someone needs to take me shopping. I don't have any clothes, and canned food all the time will make me sick."

A look of relief passed over Bo's face. "That's fine, Kitty Kat. I'm goin' into town tomorrow. Do you have any money?"

She nodded and pulled a wad of bills from her pocket, throwing them on the table.

"Jesus!" Bo cried, sitting up straight and sifting through the fives, tens, twenties, and hundreds. "There's got to be . . ."

"Three thousand dollars. It was in Victor's pocket. He was a drug dealer. There's also a load of weed back at that tent. If you guys smoke, of course. If not . . . more for me."

Bo jumped up from his chair. "Well what the hell are you waiting for?" he cried. "Let's go get that shit!"

Katrina stood up as well, taking her bowl and rinsing it out in the sink. "Let's go." She glanced at Vincent. "You coming, sexy?"

"He might if you keep talking to him like that," Bo commented as he pulled on his boots.

Vincent glared at his brother. Katrina burst into laughter. Bo grinned at the two of them.

"Ready yet?" he asked.

"Of course," Katrina answered. "Let's get a move on, then."

"We're takin' the truck," Bo said as he climbed into the vehicle.

Katrina grinned and slid into the truck, sitting on the middle seat. Vincent climbed in beside her.

It was only a five minute drive to the tent. When Bo pulled over, Katrina motioned for Vincent to get out.

"I'll be right back," Katrina said after Bo handed her a flashlight.

Bo and Vincent waited patiently for ten minutes.

"What the hell is takin' her so God damned long?" Bo asked his brother. "I can't even see the fucking light."

Vincent shrugged. "Don't know. I'll go see."

What they heard next made both of them scramble out of the truck quickly.

Katrina was screaming.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Vincent pulled his knife out of its sheath and raced towards the general direction of the tent. Bo grabbed a bat and another flashlight from the back of his truck and followed. They found the tent but found no one there. Bo shone the light around the meadow but saw nothing.

"Fucking light doesn't have a good reach!" he shouted. "Kat, where are you?"

Vincent motioned towards their right, where faint sounds of a struggle could be heard. The two brothers ran towards the noise, Bo and the flashlight in front. At the edge of the meadow, the light shone on a disturbing scene.

Katrina was struggling on the ground, gasping for breath while an older man held her down, his hands around her windpipe. Blood gushed from her nose and fresh bruises could be seen on her legs and arms. The man, seeing the light, leaped up and pulled a pistol from his pants.

Bo was too quick for him. He swung the bat in a neat arc, cracking the pistol out of the man's hand. The man cried out in pain as he dodged another attack. Vincent pulled Katrina off of the ground and out of the way.

"Th . . . thank God you guys came," she cried, rubbing her neck. "Bastard took me by surprise."

"Who is he?"

She grimaced. "It's my father."

Vincent surveyed the bruises on her body. "He did this?"

"Yes. It's nothing compared to what he's done before."

They watched as Bo took a fist to the gut.

"I . ." Vincent began.

She nodded at him. "Go. I'll help." Katrina cracked her knuckles and leaped into the fray just as Vincent took a swing at her father.

"You . . . bastards . . ." the man panted. "I'll kill . . . you . . . you . . . little bitch."

Bo stood up, wiping a trickle of blood from his lip. "Not if we kill you first, you fat fuck." He grinned at Katrina, who had picked up his bat.

She smiled back and swung. It hit her father in the arm. He howled with pain as the bone broke. It was the opening Vincent needed. He grabbed the man in a headlock, turning him to face his daughter.

Katrina sauntered up to him. "Well hello there, Pa dearest. I never got a chance to greet you properly as you tried to kill me immediately after we met again."

Her father wheezed in response.

"What do you want to do with him, darlin'?" Bo asked.

"I was hoping to kill the bastard."

Bo shrugged. "Fine with me. But I get to do this . . ." He took the bat from Katrina and swung it against the man's kneecaps, shattering them.

Katrina watched her father slump to the ground, screaming in pain. "This is going to be fun," she laughed. "Hold down his hand, Vince. I'm going to cut off his fingers."

Bo sat on the ground, taking a flask of rum from his pocket and took a sip as he watched Katrina cut off the man's fingers, one by one. His screams echoed in the moonlight. _"I love this bitch!"_ he thought in amusement. _"She's a perfect addition to our little group."_

Vincent was admiring Katrina's handiwork too. After she cut off two fingers at the base, she changed her mind and began cutting off fingers piece by piece, slicing the bone at each knuckle.

"I have a question," Katrina said as she sliced off the last bit of finger. "What will we do with this one's corpse?"

Her father began to cry like a baby.

"Well," Bo began, "we could bury it, toss it in the river, or burn the fucker. Whatever you like, darlin', he's _your_ pa."

Katrina tapped the hilt of her knife against her chin thoughtfully. "Let's burn his sorry ass. Why don't you pull your truck on over here, Bo-Bo? We'll have ourselves a little party."

Bo grinned at her. "As you wish, Kitty Kat."

She got up and collected the pistol from the ground. "I'll keep watch on this bastard, Vince. Will you find something we can burn him in?"

"Yes." He released her father, letting him slump to the ground, still moaning in pain.

Bo pulled up in his truck, blasting the radio as loud as he could.

"Keep an eye on him, will you?" Katrina asked, handing him the gun. She picked up her flashlight and walked back over to the tent where Vincent was standing.

"I can't find anything," he told her. "But we can burn him in this tent."

She smiled. "Good thinking. There's stuff I need to get out of it first." She bounced inside. "Shine your light in here, will ya?" When he complied, she picked up a black backpack, dumping its contents out on the bed. There was a load of men's clothes and toiletries and a huge Ziploc bag filled with nuggets of marijuana. Katrina grinned. "Beautiful." She opened a side zipper and pulled out a glass pipe and a lighter. Before leaving, she grabbed a small portable CD player, a CD case, and pointed at an ice chest in a corner. "That's all I needed, Vince. Will you grab that? It's got beer and a bottle of Jack in it."

He stepped back as she came out of the tent, clutching her booty. "This one?" he asked, grabbing the blue ice chest.

She nodded. "Yep."

Vincent hauled it outside as Katrina ran over to Bo. Moments later, Bo and Katrina, with her father in the bed of the truck, pulled up by the tent.

"Let's have some fun!" Katrina said, smiling widely.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"Light it up, Kitty Kat," Bo said happily, handing Katrina the lighter.

They had tied her father up and tossed him unceremoniously into the tent before zipping the door up on him. The wood Katrina and Vincent had placed around the tent had been soaked in kerosene.

Katrina grinned and lit the wood, watching as it exploded into a blaze of flame. "Anyone want some?" she asked, opening the bottle of Jack Daniels.

"You know it, darlin'." Bo said, leaning back on the grass.

Katrina sat down next to him, dragging the ice chest along with her. "Come sit by me, Vince," she ordered, pressing the play button on the boombox. The sounds of Rob Zombie's Dragula song began to play loudly.

"That's what I'm talkin' about," Bo said, grinning.

Vincent lowered himself to sit beside Katrina, carefully not looking at her. She had taken off her dirty clothes and changed into something she said belonged to Vera. It was a white lace slip dress, and she looked amazing in it, even though it was a little baggy on her.

She took a long swig of the whiskey and passed it to him. He drank sparingly and passed it on to Bo. Katrina pulled out the marijuana and placed a large chunk into the pipe. She lit it up and took a long hit, sighing with happiness.

"Here you go, Vince," she said, passing the pipe to him.

He shook his head no.

Bo began to laugh. "He's not a smoker," he said, taking the pipe and lighter.

Katrina smiled. "Maybe he will be after I'm done with him." She took the pipe after Bo had taken his hit. Drawing in a long breath of smoke, Katrina straddled Vincent and kissed him, pushing all the smoke into his lungs.

Vincent's eyes widened.

Bo watched in amusement as his brother began to choke so hard Katrina fell off his lap.

She watched, laughing, as he fell backwards onto the grass. "Vincent?" she asked, crawling up to him. "Babe, are you all right?"

He grinned up at her.

The three of them finished off the remains of the pipe and the Jack Daniels before starting on the beer. By that time, the fire had faded down to a pale light.

Katrina, who had been staring up at the stars, sat up to see that Bo was passed out and Vincent was sitting alone, watching the fire. "Vincent?" she asked.

He turned and smiled.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly, not wanting to wake up Bo.

"Thinking."

"Of what?"

Vincent looked down at his hands. "Just . . . about what you said. Artist's hands."

"You _do_ have them."

"How can you tell?"

She smiled, taking his hands in hers. "They're soft and strong, but they have callouses on them. And not just any callouses. They're not all over, but they've been building up in the same place."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, look at these callouses here," Katrina said, pointing towards a callous that ran along his palm, right underneath his fingers. "This one is from holding tools. Not wooden ones, but metal. And this one here . . ." she pointed to another on his fingertips, "this one is from holding delicate paintbrushes."

He watched her soft fingers trace the callouses, unable to keep a moan from escaping his lips.

She looked at him knowingly. "Vincent . . ." she whispered, sliding onto his lap. "Do you want me as much as I want you?"

Vincent gasped. For a terrible moment, he thought she was teasing him. Then her hands buried themselves in his hair and her lips met his . . . softly at first and then they pressed on them harder and her tongue entered his mouth. His body took over his hesitant mind and his arms snaked around her, pulling her as tightly to his as he could. His hands grasped handfuls of her sweet smelling hair, making her moan in both pain and pleasure. She pulled away from his mouth, trailing butterfly-like kisses down his neck. He reveled in the pleasure of her mouth and decided to do the same for her.

His kisses were hard and painful, more like bites along her jawline down her neck to her jugular vein, which was throbbing in time with her heart. Vincent pulled her head to the side and bit it firmly, so hard he tasted her metallic blood in his mouth. Fearful that he had hurt or disgusted her, Vincent lifted his head to see her expression.

Katrina's eyes were closed, her face tilted up towards the moonlit sky. Her mouth was open, she was sighing softly. "For fuck's sake, Vincent, don't stop," she whispered, her lips barely moving. "Do it harder. Do whatever you want. However you want. Just please don't stop."

Driven by an urge he had never felt before, Vincent yanked her hair out of the way with one hand, clawing at her shoulder with his other. He bit her again, this time exulting in the taste of her skin and blood. She shifted her weight as she moaned softly, her milk white arms dangling at her side as if she were in a trance. His heated kisses trailed back up her neck to her lips, which she opened to admit him access. He took her lip between his teeth and tugged on it gently, not wanting to harm what gave him such pleasure.

Vincent heard Bo shifting around on the ground beside them. It brought him out of his reverie and he noticed that the first rays of the sun were peeking out over the horizon. Katrina noticed as well and kissed him once more before sliding off of him.

"That was some damn fucking good weed," Bo said sleepily as he sat up.

Vincent and Katrina exchanged glances and began to laugh.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Katrina awoke to find herself staring at fading flowery print wallpaper. She stretched, yawning, before remembering where she was. Sitting up with a smile, she took in her surroundings. The room was small and dingy, with only the old queen sized bed, a small nightstand with some candles on it, and an ancient looking wardrobe as its only furnishings.

She remembered that this was Vincent's room and vaguely remembered him carrying her up there. What she couldn't remember was whether or not he had stayed there too. From the looks of things, she didn't think so. Looking out the window, Katrina realized it had to be late afternoon. She hopped out of bed, wincing as a splinter from the wooden floor stuck into her foot. After pulling it out, she went downstairs to find some breakfast.

"Good morning sunshine!" she heard Bo call from the kitchen.

Walking in, Katrina began to laugh as she saw Bo standing at the stove, trying to juggle smoking a cigarette with frying some sort of meat in a pan and keeping a hold onto a makeshift leash that was attached to Vera. The girl had a look of complete despair on her face as she knelt by Bo's feet.

"Good morning Bo-Bo," Katrina said, walking over to peck his cheek. "What the hell are you cooking?"

He grinned at her. "Just some shit Lester brought over. Probably some coon."

"Gross." Katrina sat down at the kitchen table, being sure to step on Vera's fingers in the process. The girl cried out in pain.

"Now Kitty Kat, be nice to the little bitch. Can't you see she's havin' a rough mornin'?"

Katrina shrugged. "I'll try, really I will," she answered in a tone that promised the opposite. "Where's Vincent?"

"Down in his workshop. He had to finish with the fat bitch."

"I wanted to watch."

"Well you needed sleep more, darlin'. You look terrible."

She sighed, remembering she probably was black and blue all over. "I forgot about all that."

"You forgot about all that fun we had?" Bo asked, raising an eyebrow mockingly.

"Well after all that alcohol . . ."

"And that great weed . . ."

"I'm surprised I remember anything."

Bo laughed. "You passed out the moment we got into the truck."

She waved a hand at him languidly. "I'm not normally such a lightweight."

"Whatever. All women are. Can't drink to save their lives."

Katrina stuck her tongue out at him. "Whatever yourself. So are you going into town today or what?"

"Well . . . for all you said you needed, clothes and all that shit, we'll have to go into Silverton. That's about an hour's drive from here."

"Where do you usually go?"

"Woodston. It's got a police station, fire station, hospital, gas station, and a general store. Mostly old fuckers that live there. They all go to Silverton for their other shoppin'."

"There's not even a Wal-Mart or something?"

"One of those get everything in one place stores? Nope."

"What stores do they have?"

"Do I look like I go shoppin' often, darlin'?" Bo asked in amusement.

Katrina laughed at this. "All right, all right. Anyway, I want to go see Vincent. But first, I want something to eat that's not roadkill. Then I want to take a shower." She gave him a stern glare. "Please tell me you have shampoo."

"You must think we're damn big rednecks."

"No. You're just men. Men don't usually use shampoo."

Bo rolled his eyes. "You're tellin' me that men you know don't wash their hair?"

"They use regular soap, I guess. Unless they're a metro."

"What in God's fucking name is a metero?"

"Me-tro. A metro sexual. Men who take care of themselves like they're gay, you know . . . they use shampoo and conditioner and get facials and manicures. But they're not gay."

Bo burst into laughter, laughing so hard he began smacking his thigh with the spatula he was holding. "What the fuck? You're serious?"

She nodded. "Dead serious. That guy Victor was one." She leaned over to look under the table at Vera. "Wasn't he, sweetums?"

He turned to look at her seriously. "And you were screwin' him?"

"No. I killed him because he tried to rape me."

Bo pursed his lips. "And what are your intentions with my brother?"

Katrina looked him straight in the eye. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, darlin', that Vincent isn't exactly the most intelligent fucker when it comes to women. Never got out much when he was at _that age_, you know?"

She looked down at her hands. "You think I'm teasing him."

"What the fuck do you call it?"

"I like him."

"Don't fuck with me. He's a fucking deformed freak."

Katrina glared at him angrily. "He's not! I wish you'd stop telling him that shit! It's not fucking right, Bo!"

"Don't tell me what . . ."

"I _will_ tell you!" she shouted, standing up so quickly her chair flipped over backwards. "You need to leave him the fuck alone!" Her eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth as she stared at his angry expression. To her surprise, he grinned and went back to poking at the meat with his spatula.

"So you do like him. Don't break his heart, Kitty Kat, or I'll break every bone in that tiny little body of yours." He glanced back at her. "You're mighty hot when you get all riled up like that."

"You ass."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: **

"I feel so much better," Katrina exclaimed happily as she combed the last snarl out of her curls. "I'm so glad they had shampoo. And conditioner! I smell like orange blossoms . . . not really my thing, you know . . . but at least I'm clean." She glanced over at Vera, who was tied up on the bed. "I'm going shopping today, with Bo. I'm going to use your brother's money. Or maybe I should use your credit card, Vera."

Katrina stood up and began dressing; putting on the same white slipdress she had been wearing the night before. "Well, that's a bitch," she said, noticing grass stains on the hem. Shrugging, Katrina pulled on some black boots she had filched from Vera's bag.

The sight of the boots seemed to snap Vera back into reality. "You're going to Hell," she whispered. "You and those . . . those . . . _monsters_."

"You're going there before me," Katrina told her as she finished lacing the ties on the boots.

"Why did you kill him?"

"Who? Victor?"

"You killed my brother!"

"Your brother tried to rape me!" Katrina snarled. "He got what was coming to him."

"And what about Jessie? What about _me_?" Vera cried. "I don't deserve this!" She began to sob. "I don't want to die!"

Katrina shrugged. "Everything happens for a reason, Vera. Cheer up. You'll be immortal. Beautiful and bald until the end of time. Or however long wax lasts, anyway."

"They'll kill you too, you know."

"I don't think so, Ver. You see, Bo and Vince and I . . . we share many interests."

"_You kill people!"_

Katrina began to laugh. "So what if I kill people? I just kill their bodies. You kill reputations. What about that girl Yvonne that killed herself because of you?" She leaned in close to the other girl. "We're not much different, dearie."

Vera collapsed into a fit of sobs, murmuring _"I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"_

Someone knocked on the door, and Katrina hurried to open it, hoping it was Vincent.

"Hello there," said Lester.

Katrina took a step back.

"I didn't frighten you, did I?" he asked timidly.

She shook her head. "No. I just wasn't expecting you."

Lester nodded towards Vera. "I'm to take her now."

Katrina opened the door wider. "Be my guest." She held out her hand. "I'm Katrina, by the way."

He looked a bit surprised, but then smiled at her with genuine happiness and shook her hand. "Lester."

She smiled back, getting the feeling that people usually weren't so kind to him. It also helped that he had showered, although the dead, rotting smell still clung faintly to his clothing.

Lester walked over to Vera and pulled her up from the bed. Vera began to scream and fight. It was all Lester could do just to hold on to the girl. Katrina began to laugh.

"Here you go, Les." She reached back and punched Vera in the jaw, so hard that she fell backwards onto the floor. Katrina smirked. "She'll behave herself now."

He grinned at her. "Thankee much."

"Anytime."

She followed him down the hallway, nodding to him as he went into one of the bedrooms and shut the door. Stifling a giggle, Katrina headed down the stairs.

"Dear God, it stinks in here," she said as she walked through the kitchen and out onto the porch where Bo was smoking another cigarette.

"Are you sure you want to go shopping looking like you've been hit by a car?" he asked.

She bit her lip, staring down at the bruises on her legs and arms. "I can wear one of your shirts over the dress."

Bo shrugged. "Well, we'll probably get there this evening anyway. You can't see the shit that much in the dark. And we can always say you _did_ get hit by a car."

Katrina laughed. "That's true."

"Anyway," he continued, "I found more money in the fat bitches' purse. There was some in Vera's purse too. Nowhere near how much that other fucker had, though. But enough for some better food, as you're too _good_ for what we have."

She rolled her eyes. "It's not healthy to eat only canned food. All that sodium's going to give you a heart attack, you know."

He crushed the butt of his cigarette on the porch rail. "I didn't know my health was so important to you."

"Well . . . you did help me with my pa and all that."

"Plus, I didn't kill you."

Katrina mock punched his arm. "How can you be so sure I wouldn't have killed _you_?"

He laughed at this. "You _are_ an evil little shit. I'm sure it would have been a fun little tussle. But I would have won."

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Better watch yourself, or I'll cut that thing off," he warned. "Anyway, Kitty Kat, I'm going to go kill that dumb bitch upstairs. I'm tired of her already. Why don't you go down and tell Vincent we're gonna be goin' in a bit."

"All righty," she said.

"Be back here in half an hour. I wanna take my time with my precious Vera."

Laughing, Katrina waved a hand and jogged towards the House of Wax.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: **

"Vincent?" Katrina called as she made her way down a wax hallway, wrinkling her nose at the faces carved into the wall. She yelped as she missed her footing and tumbled down the last few stairs, landing hard on her side.

"Ouch," she moaned, rubbing the side of her head. She looked up to see Vincent standing over her. He shook his head and picked her up into his arms, carrying her into his workshop.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded. "I'm okay. It just hurt worse because I've got a bunch of bruises already." Grinning, she nuzzled into his chest. "I could get used to being carried, you know."

He swallowed hard, wondering whether or not she remembered what had happened between them the night before.

"I'd kiss you, Vincent, but you're wearing that mask," Katrina said, fingering the edges of the wax.

Vincent shook his head and set her down gently. "I don't like it off."

"There's no one else here."

"I don't like you seeing . . ."

She stomped her foot. "I don't like _that mask_!"

He sighed and slowly peeled it off. She smiled at him and walked over to kiss him deeply.

"Now isn't that much better?" Katrina asked.

He smiled faintly and put the mask back on.

"Fine," she said, crossing her arms. "Be stubborn. Anyway, Bo told me to tell you that we're going into town."

A look of jealousy flashed in his eye that wasn't missed by Katrina.

"You know, if you stop wearing that mask, I'll model my new underwear for you."

The thought of watching her parade in front of him wearing tiny lacy things of the type he had taken off so many victims almost made him consider removing the mask. But he couldn't. Not yet, anyway. It represented the only security he had ever known.

The look on her face softened and she laid a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, Vincent. I shouldn't push you to take it off when you've worn it for so long. Forgive me, and I'll still model my underwear for you."

Vincent sighed in relief and nodded. _"She understands . . ."_ he thought. Aloud he said, "Would you like to see Jessie?"

Katrina clapped her hands together in delight. "I forgot about her! Where is she?"

He reached out and tentatively took her hand to lead her upstairs.

They went into the dining room. Vincent pointed towards the newest wax figure.

Katrina burst into laughter. "Oh. My. God." She turned around and hugged him tightly, raining kisses all over his wax face. "This is _hilarious_!"

Vincent had made a perfect replica of Jessie's features, right down to the blonde hair and watery blue eyes. She was dressed in the sort of cheap puce green evening gown women wore when they were dirt poor but wanted to look like they had money. She also had on ugly old fashioned plastic pearl beads around her neck and a fake-looking emerald ring on her fat hand. Her other hand was raised as if she were going to stuff her mouth full of an enormous forkful of wax lasagna. Vincent had completed the effect by putting splatters of red sauce on her dress and the sides of her face. He had also turned the other wax figures at the table to look as if they were glancing at her with distaste.

He held onto Katrina for another brief moment before releasing her.

"Bo's killing Vera right now, so you'll have another body to work with in a bit," Katrina remembered. "Where will you put her?"

"I'll show you."

She followed him out of the House of Wax into the town and over to the movie theater.

"I'll put her here. I don't like this beauty queen much," Vincent said, pointing at Miss Ambrose.

Katrina's face fell. "You're going to make her Miss Ambrose?"

He nodded, not noticing the pained look in her eyes. "Yes. Vera is beautiful. Very beautiful. She'll make a better Miss Ambrose." Vincent leaned over and began adjusting the gown on the current Miss Ambrose. "I'll make her one of my finest. Her body is perfect; it will fill out this dress better."

"What do you mean, perfect?" Katrina asked.

Vincent turned to look at her, noting the strange tone to her voice. "I mean . . . her breasts are a good size, and . . . and she isn't too thin, and . . . her face is like . . ." He paused for a moment, trying to remember what Vera's features reminded him of. "Like that picture of Venus rising from the sea. And her hair is like . . . like the color of the sunset." He closed his eye, thinking about the beauty he would create.

Katrina gulped back a sob.

Vincent's eyes flew open. He was shocked to see tears trickling down her cheeks. "Katrina?" he asked.

"I bet you wish it was Vera that was in your arms last night, don't you?" she cried. "That's fine. I'm used to people doing that. You're just another guy that was just using me to get with her!"

Vincent shook his head and took a step towards her, terrified that he had made her hate him. Her rage and pain were apparent in her expression, making him want to pull her into his arms and keep her there forever.

Her hands balled into fists as she screamed at him. "Why don't you go on up to the house, then? Go see if Bo's killed her yet. Go on and fuck her and see if I care!" She shoved Miss Ambrose off her pedestal before turning and running out the door.

Vincent stared down at the cracked remains of his creation, his emotions a tumult. _"What have I done?"_


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: **

Katrina ran up the street straight to the Sinclair house. Bo was just pulling Vera's dead body out onto the porch. He threw the girl's corpse down onto the wood and stared at Katrina.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

She glared at him before stomping on Vera's face over and over until it was nothing but a bloody pulp. "Let's see if Vincent wants you now!" she screamed before running into the kitchen and up the stairs.

Bo heard a door slam and he shook his head before taking out a cigarette. He lit it and took a long drag, scrutinizing the bloodied mess before him. "Vincent!" he called when he saw his brother in the distance, returning to the House of Wax. "Get over here, you fuckin' freak."

Vincent walked over to his brother slowly, not really wanting to talk.

"Why is Katrina running around here with her panties in a fucking bunch?" Bo asked.

Vincent glanced over at the bloody remains of Vera on the porch and said nothing.

"What did you do?" Bo insisted.

Sighing, Vincent related what had happened in the theater. To his surprise, Bo began to laugh uproariously.

"So that's it. Kitty Kat's jealous."

"What?" Vincent asked.

"You are so fucking stupid," Bo told him, flicking his cigarette away. He pulled another out of his thin silver cigarette case and lit it up.

"There's some things you've gotta know about women, Vinnie-boy. First of all, they hate with a fucking passion if you praise another girl in front of them. Especially if they hate that other girl as much as Kitty Kat hates Vera here."

He kicked the dead girl's body before continuing. "Your stupid ass made Kat think you liked Vera more. See, Kitty Kat's a thin little thing . . . not a fucking ounce of meat on her bones. Tellin' her that Vera had big titties and a perfect fucking body . . . well . . .that was like sayin' _her_ titties and _her _body don't float your boat. Know what I'm sayin'?"

Vincent stared at his brother in horror. _"So that's why she ran away."_ He glanced up at his window, wondering if Katrina was in there. _"What if she's so mad she won't kiss me ever again? What if she leaves?"_ He sighed, thinking he had ruined everything.

"Stupid bastard," Bo said, shoving Vincent hard. "I've got to get to town now, or else I won't make it back before morning. I'm takin' her with me. Let her cool down some, and then apologize to her." He ground his cigarette into the door. "But if she won't forgive you, that's your own fuckin' fault. I ain't gettin' rid of her just because you're an idiot. She can be of some help around here with our little project. She's a good killer and it'll be easier on us to have another one around. Plus, I sort of like the bitch. Hear me? Now _get_."

He watched the deformed man lumber away before striding into the kitchen. "Katrina! Get your lily white ass down here!" Hearing her footsteps in the hall upstairs, Bo pulled out another cigarette and lit it before rummaging in a cupboard.

"What?" Katrina asked sullenly, coming to stand behind him.

Bo pulled a small ice chest out of the cupboard and set it on the table. "Get some ice."

She did as he asked while he took a six pack of beer out of the fridge and put the bottles in the chest. Without having to be asked, Katrina poured the ice over them and put the lid on the chest.

"Are we leaving now?" she asked.

Bo nodded. "Yup. Got your money?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go."

Katrina followed him out to the truck and climbed in as he started the engine. It wasn't lost on him that she deliberately turned her face away from the House of Wax as they passed, but he chose to say nothing.

"Pop me open a beer, will ya?" he told her.

She pulled two beers out of the ice chest, handing him one and taking a large gulp of the other. "Drinking and driving. Fun."

He laughed at her. "It's the only way to do it, darlin'."

This got a smile from her. They drove on in companionable silence for the hour and a half it took to get to Silverton.

Bo pulled up to the mall and motioned for Katrina to get out.

"You're not coming?" she asked anxiously.

He shook his head. "Nope. I've got to go get supplies. Take this with you." He handed her a bowie knife in a leather sheath. "Tie it onto your thigh so it don't show under your dress. And wear this over, so the bruises don't show so much." After giving her a black trench coat, Bo gave her a shove. "Now get out. Don't get into trouble. I'll be back here in a couple of hours."

Katrina nodded and got out of the truck. Without waiting to watch him drive away, she went into the mall.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15:**

It was a Monday, so there weren't many people there. There wasn't much she liked in the lower floor of the mall, as it was mostly children's clothing and shops old people usually shop at. The second level was much better. The first store she went into was Frederick's of Hollywood. It had been a while since she had last bought underwear, so she had to get fitted for a bra and had to try on several pairs of panties until she found the size she needed.

She surveyed her body in the full length mirror in her dressing room and made a face. "No wonder Vincent likes Vera's body better," she whispered, staring at her small breasts and bony hips. "At least I have a flat stomach, though."

After choosing about twenty matching bra and panty sets, Katrina stood in front of the sexy lingerie section with a wry grin. She grabbed a royal blue satin corset with matching garter belt and held it up to her body before tossing it into her shopping basket. A few silk nightgowns went into the basket as well. After she made her purchases, Katrina felt her anger recede. "So shopping _does_ make a girl feel better," she said, much to the amusement of two women behind her who began to laugh. One of them nodded to her.

"You're a bit old to figure that one out, honey."

Katrina glanced at her, realized the woman wasn't making fun of her, and smiled back.

She went into several other stores before finding one that she liked. After buying several pairs of jeans that said Lucky You when you pulled down the zipper, as well as numerous miniskirts, schoolgirl skirts, baby T shirts, and tank tops, Katrina was loaded down with shopping bags. She decided to get her hair trimmed as a way to rest for a while. The woman trimmed and layered Katrina's curls and cut some wispy bangs across her forehead.

"Gorgeous!" the hairstylist told her as she got off the beautician's chair.

Katrina glanced at the clock in the food court of the mall to see that she still had a half-hour left before Bo came to pick her up. She bought an ice cream and strolled the mall to kill some time. She had stopped in two more shops. One was an accessories store where she bought jewelry and belts, while the other was a shoe store. She only bought a pair of sneakers, a pair of sandals, and a pair of sturdy boots, not being a real shoe person. In fact, she preferred going barefoot. But the sneakers and sandals would look good with her outfits, while the boots would come in useful while living in Ambrose.

As she was walking towards the exit, she came across a hunting store. She smiled at the display of knives in the window and decided to go in and look. In one corner was a set of matching black handled knives with twelve inch blades shaped into a sort of tribal design. Katrina drew in her breath.

"Can I help you?" the clerk asked.

Katrina pointed towards the knives. "Are these just for decoration or are they actually useful?"

The man pulled them from the display and handed them to her. "They're imported from Japan. Best knives we've got. They can cut through anything."

She touched the blade, feeling its sharpness, and then trailed her fingers along the hilt. There was a silver oval embedded there. She looked up questioningly at the clerk.

"The hilt is real ebony, and the silver is for engraving your name."

Katrina nodded. For a moment she thought about what Vincent had said and grew angry. Then she smiled. "How much?"

The man named the amount.

"Good. I'll take both. How long will it take you to engrave names on there?"

"About ten minutes. A machine does it. What would you like on them?"

She smiled. "Katrina on one, and Vincent on the other." She glanced over at a deadly looking blade in the middle of the display, with a jagged edge on one side. "I'd also like that, also engraved. And this too," she said, picking up a bowie knife.

"What engravings would you like on these?"

"Bo on this one, and Lester on the bowie."

"How would you like the engraving?"

"The scroll calligraphy on the matching ones, and the Roman letters on the other two."

The man nodded at her and went into the back room. Katrina walked around the store, looking at other things until he was done. She smiled at the beauty of the engravings and glanced up at the shelf behind the clerk.

"I'll need some of these too," she said, pointing towards black leather sheaths for the knives . . . belt sheaths for the men and a thigh sheath for herself.

When the register rang up the final amount, Katrina smiled sweetly and beckoned to the clerk with her finger. "You know," she whispered, "I just don't have enough money for all these. So . . ."

Before he could make a sound, she drew the bowie knife from her thigh and stabbed him in the gut. She pulled the body into the back room before leaving the store.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed, staring at the clock. It was fifteen minutes past the time Bo had told her to be outside. She ran as quickly as she could towards the exit, panting heavily underneath all the bags she was carrying.

Katrina called out to Bo, who had just walked in the mall with an annoyed expression.

"What the fuck, Kat? I told you to be outside!" He glanced at her new hair. "It's nice."

"Thanks, and sorry," she apologized. "It's hard carrying all these."

Bo sighed loudly and took some of the bags from her. They hurried out to the truck, where he secured the bags in a corner. The bed was full of boxes and crates.

"What's all this?" Katrina asked.

"Food and other shit we need. Like beer," Bo said, glancing at the camouflage bag she was carrying. "What's in there?"

She grinned. "A surprise."

"What is it?" he asked, starting up the truck.

"You'll have to wait until we get back," was all she said.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: Knives**

Bo rolled his eyes for the thousandth time as he pulled up to the Sinclair house. Without a word, he hopped out and strode over to Katrina's side, pulling her from her seat and tossing her over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she asked, still clutching the bag with the knives.

He said nothing, taking her straight down to Vincent's workshop.

"Take. Her." Bo insisted, tossing her down on the bed Vincent sometimes used to nap on if he worked all night on a body. "All she's done the whole way home is talk about clothes!"

Vincent drew in his breath, staring at her new appearance. She smiled at him.

"Do you like it?" she asked shyly as Bo made his way back upstairs.

He nodded, and then remembered what Bo had told him. He walked over and stood before her. "I am sorry."

Katrina stood up, running her hands along his arms. "I know. I'm sorry too."

"Why? You did nothing."

She sighed. "I know she's beautiful," she told him. "I shouldn't get mad at you for stating a fact."

Vincent shook his head. "No. You are more beautiful. I would . . . never want her over you."

"You don't have to . . ."

He reached down slowly and put his finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. "Katrina."

She smiled and hugged him. "I have something for you."

Vincent looked surprised. Katrina opened the bag and pulled out two of the knives.

"Look what I found," she said softly, handing him the knives in their beautiful black sheathes.

He held one up and drew it out, drawing in his breath, his artistic mind reveling in its beauty. Running a finger along the blade up to the hilt, he saw the silver oval, engraved with the name Katrina. With a smile, he handed it back to her. "It is beautiful."

"No, silly. Look at the other one."

Vincent pulled the sheath off of the other knife and stared. It was if he couldn't believe his eyes. His fingers traced over the beautiful calligraphy of his name. "For me?" he asked in disbelief.

She nodded. "Yes. A matching pair. One for you and one for me."

"Why?" he asked, still fingering the knife. "Why for me?"

"Well . . . I got knives for Bo and Lester too," she said uncomfortably. "But only yours and mine match." She pulled out the other two knives. "I wanted to get them something . . . you know, to say thank you for letting me stay and being so nice to me and all that."

He blinked, confused. "But why did you get matching knives for me and you?"

Katrina bit her lip. "You don't like it?"

"I love it. It's just that . . . I don't understand. No one has ever given me something like this before."

She took his hand. "I got it for you because . . ."

Before she could finish, Bo tossed Vera's corpse down into the workshop. "I'm comin' down," he called. "Y'all better be decent. I don't mind seein' you, Kitty Kat, but Vince better have somethin' on."

Katrina laughed. Vincent blushed. Bo walked down the stairs carefully, one hand over his eyes. He peeked out between his fingers and raised an eyebrow.

"What's goin' on?" His gaze rested on the knife Vincent was holding. "Now that's a mother fucking knife!"

"I got you a knife, just not the same one," Katrina said, handing him the knife with the jagged edge. She watched, chewing on a thumbnail, as he drew it from the sheath.

"It's an ebony hilt," Katrina said hurriedly as he ran a thumb over his name. "And the blade is ten inches. You can do most anything with it. The clerk said it will slice right through bone."

Bo merely nodded, not wanting to show how pleased he was. "It's a fine blade." He strapped it onto his belt with a grin that Katrina took to mean thanks.

She smiled at him before turning back to Vincent. "You look tired," she said. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

He shook his head.

"Do you want to go up and get some sleep?"

Bo shook his head. "He can't. He's got to work on this one." He kicked Vera's body in the ribs. "If he can fix the face."

Katrina grinned sheepishly and hugged Vincent. "He can do anything."

"Uh-huh. Okay. I'm goin' to get some shuteye," Bo said. "Listening to you on the way back here exhausted me." He stepped over the corpse and went upstairs.

Katrina yawned. "I'm going to stay down here and watch this time," she told Vincent. "But first I'm going to run up to the house and get my new nightie."

She winked at him and ran up the stairs.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: The Nightie**

"What the fucking fuck are you _wearing_?" Bo asked as Katrina pranced downstairs, wearing a short, tight black silk nightgown with tiny velvet bows on the spaghetti straps.

She shrugged innocently. "A nightgown. What else would you call it?"

His eyes widened as he looked her up and down. "A come-hither and rape me outfit, that's what the fuck I'd call it."

Katrina laughed. "Well _I_ call it a nightie. And me and this nightie are going to Vince's workshop. I'm going to watch him wax Vera."

Bo raised an eyebrow. "Yeah right. You show him how you look in that thing and there'll be no fuckin' way he does anything but stare at you."

She stopped in front of him. "Why Bo, are you saying I look _good_?"

He laughed at her. "Fuck yeah, darlin'." He scrutinized her for a moment. "You _do_ know you look fine as fuck, right?"

She swallowed. "I'm going down to the workshop," she said before turning and hurrying out the door.

Bo shook his head, took another swig of beer, and returned to watching _I Love Lucy_.

Katrina walked slowly through the frigid air, feeling goosebumps rise on her arms and legs. She wiped a tear from her eye and held it out on her fingertip, watching the moonlight dance around in its depths before flicking it away.

Vincent watched her from a window in the House of Wax. Part of him wanted to go out and hold her, while the other part was too afraid of rejection. He touched the knife at his waist, running a finger along the carved words of his name. _"She likes me . . . why am I so afraid of her?" _He took a step towards the door, intending on going out to her, but just couldn't make himself do it. Turning on his heel, he hurried back down into his workshop.

Unaware that she had been watched, Katrina stood for a few more moments, staring up at the moon. When the cold air became too much for her, she wrapped her arms around herself and went into the House of Wax, heading downstairs. "Vincent?" she asked, turning the corner into the workshop. The sounds of a woman singing the Ave Maria sounded throughout the air. "Are you down here?"

He took a deep breath before turning around to face her.

She looked amazing.

Katrina smiled shyly. "Do . . . do you like it?" she asked.

Vincent stared at her, nodding slowly.

She walked over to the bed and sat down, wondering why he was being so shy when he had obviously been so interested the night before.

"_She can't truly want me . . . who would want a freak like me?" _he thought, forcing himself to turn back around and begin scraping down the now waxed Vera.

Katrina swallowed hard and pulled a blanket around herself. "So . . ." she said, trying to break the silence.

Vincent's eyebrows met as he desperately tried to find something to talk about. "How . . . did you get here?" he finally asked.

Katrina began twisting a curl around her finger. "My Pa was an asshole," she said. "He would beat the shit out of me since I was a little girl." She leaned back, examining her fingernails. "It was like . . . after so many years of hearing him say I was worth nothing, of him beating me, of hearing him say no one cared . . . I finally started to believe it. Even if he didn't like me, others did. Guys mostly. I thought that just because they wanted to screw me, it meant they loved me."

Vincent nodded, motioning for her to continue while he finished working on Vera. Anything to keep from actually looking at her.

"Anyway, I got pretty fucking tired of Pa. The other day, after he caught me crawling out of the window to go to a rave, he beat me within an inch of my life. For some reason, it reminded me of when I was a little girl, and I ran away because he hit me in the face. All I did was take a bite of his sandwich. But I was so hungry! I was on punishment for three days without any food because I forgot to close the porch door." She snorted.

"Where is your mother?"

"Pa killed her when I was eight. He slammed her head in the wall until it was mushier than a rotten pumpkin."

Vincent stared at her in shock. "How do you know he killed her?" The thought of a man harming his wife was too foreign for him to comprehend. His father had never been nothing but loving towards his mother, even when she lost her mind.

She shrugged. "I watched him do it."

"Why?"

"Why did he do it, or why did I see it?"

"Why did he do it?"

"Probably because she told my brother not to hit me."

"You have a brother?'

"Yes," she said, making a face. "He's just as bad as Pa. Robert's his name. He's back at the house, probably waiting for Pa to bring me back. Stupid idiot."

"He beat you too?" Vincent stared at Katrina with anger in his eyes.

"Yes. But he didn't start beating me until after we moved out of the town I was born in. Before then, it was just slapping."

"When?"

"Right after Pa killed Ma. He didn't want to get caught. We left that night, after Pa buried Ma in the backyard. We lived in the car until Pa got a job at a gas station. Then we lived in shitty motels until Robert was old enough to get a job. They rented houses after that. We were living in Mead . . . that's a town about seventy five miles north of here . . . for the past four years."

Vincent nodded. When the three closest towns had no jobs for Bo to do, he often traveled all the way to Mead.

"That's where Robert is now," Katrina continued. "And about a week ago, I got tired of their shit and just left. I left with these idiots because I knew Victor wanted me. I knew that if he thought he could get some, I could ride in the car with them. I've known them all since I moved to Mead. We all went to the same high school together. Vera and Jessie and I never got along, but Victor's always been trying to get me to go out with him. He asked me to go with them to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I thought that I would just ditch them when I got far enough away." She made a face.

"But I got tired of Victor trying to get in my pants. When I went to wash off in the river, he followed me. Fucker tried to rape me. So I sliced his throat. Greg had been joking with me to do it anyway. Just because he wanted me too. That and Victor was constantly talking shit to poor little Greg. Of course I planned on killing that bastard as well . . . he would have tried to fuck me too. I don't know what it is with guys who think that just because a girl's little and skinny, she can't defend herself."

Vincent glanced at her and smiled. She smiled back.

"I was going to kill these bitches too. This fucking bitch right here got Jessie to call my Pa to tell him where I was going. That's how Pa found out where I was. They did it while I was killing Victor." She was silent for a moment. "That probably means Robert knows, too. This also means he'll be along sooner or later, to find out where Pa and I are."

"No. I'll kill him."

She grinned at him. "I love you, Vincent."

He turned red and looked back down at Vera, putting the finishing touches to her face. He got so engrossed in the detail that he forgot about Katrina. When he finally looked up, she was asleep. A few hours later, he slid into bed beside her, not wanting to leave her down in the workshop alone.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: **

Vincent woke up to the deliciously warm feeling of having someone else in bed with him. He felt Katrina's face pressed up against the middle of his bare back, her warm breath breathing slowly and heavily against his skin. One of her arms was thrown lazily around his waist. He tried to move . . . to turn around so he could look at her, but her hand clutched at his stomach as if she were begging him to remain as he was.

He smiled, gently prying her fingers open, entwining them with his own. Slowly, he rolled over, careful not to wake her or to let a draft underneath the single blanket they shared. Katrina's mouth was slightly open, and Vincent ran a finger along her soft lower lip, making her press her lips together. Her eyes had a funny way of crinkling at the ends as if she were laughing in her sleep. He moved a lock of hair away from her face to look at them better, and then he touched her temple with a forefinger.

Katrina murmured and shifted her weight, turning onto her back. "Vincent . . ." she murmured quietly.

Vincent's eyes widened, expecting her to wake up. When she remained asleep, he reached out to brush the hair out of her eyes. The faint scent of orange blossoms invaded his nostrils and he sighed, thinking of his mother. The fragrance had been a favorite of hers when she was still sane enough to bathe.

"Vincent . . ." he heard Katrina whisper again, and this time she was awake and smiling at him.

His eyes darted away, ashamed that he had been touching her without her permission. When he looked at her again, her eyes were sad.

"Are you mad at me?" she asked.

He shook his head.

She sat up and touched his arm. "Then why . . . why don't you want me?"

Vincent stared at her. "I . . . I do want you."

"Don't you understand that I want you back?"

"No one has ever wanted me. I'm a freak."

"You're not. I've never, ever thought that, Vincent. Never."

He looked down at the blanket. "Why would you want to be with me? When there is Bo?"

"I like Bo. But I want you."

"Why?"

She took his hand and stood up, pulling him off the bed towards the stairs. He followed her up to the main floor of the House of Wax, over to a table where he kept his first wax creations . . . creatures with the torsos and heads of women but the bodies and legs of animals.

"I want you because of this . . ." Katrina said, touching a woman-octopus, "and this . . . and this . . ." She went on to touch every item there before pointing up to the oil painting just above it. "And this too." She whirled around, indicating the entire room. "Because of all of this. You're a genius, an artist, a . . . a . . ." Gesturing widely, she tried to think of the right word. "I want you because you're _Vincent_. I know this sounds stupid."

"No." Gathering all his courage, Vincent pulled her into his arms. "Thank you," he said into her hair.

They stood quietly for several moments before he heard her stomach rumbling.

"Breakfast?" he asked. She nodded at him. Hesitantly, he put his arm around her and they walked up to the Sinclair house.

Bo was snoring on the couch when they walked in. Katrina giggled and pulled Vincent into the kitchen. Opening the fridge, she squealed with delight. Bo had stocked it full of vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, and milk. She went to open a cabinet and found some flour, sugar, coffee, and other staples.

"Do you like pancakes?" she asked Vincent.

His eyes widened. "Yes. Mother used to make them."

"You mean you haven't had pancakes since . . ." She stopped mid-sentence. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to remind you of your mom."

"It's okay," Vincent said quietly, glad that she thought so much of his feelings.

Katrina silently began getting all the things she would need to make the pancakes and began to mix the ingredients together. "Will you find me a skillet and put some butter in it?" she asked.

He nodded and did as she asked, putting the skillet on the stove and turning on the gas.

"I'm glad that's not an electric stove," she commented. "I hate electric stoves. They burn everything I try to cook."

She began cooking the pancakes, making a delicious smell waft around the kitchen and into the room where Bo slept. Searching through the other cabinets, Katrina found another skillet in which she began cooking scrambled eggs, adding butter, milk, and salt to the mixture.

"Well ain't this the best fuckin' sight I have ever opened my eyes to!" Bo said as he stepped into the room, yawning. "A drop dead gorgeous woman cooking some excellent smelling breakfast. Well worth the expense of the food, I think."

Vincent stared at him with a mixture of worry and jealousy.

"Food's ready," Katrina said, motioning for Bo to sit. She served both men pancakes and eggs, setting down the butter and a jug of maple syrup on the table along with the plates. It wasn't until after she got them tall glasses of milk that she sat down to eat her own breakfast.

Bo eyed her approvingly as he shoved a large forkful of pancakes in his mouth. "This is the shit," he said, sighing.

Katrina pushed the remainder of her breakfast away. "I can't eat any more," she said.

"You'd better get some meat on them bones, darlin'," Bo told her, pulling her plate towards himself.

"I'm going to go take a shower," Katrina announced. "I'll clean up after I'm done."

"She's a keeper, Vincent," Bo told his brother after she had gone.

When Katrina came back downstairs about an hour later, the men were still eating. Vincent stared at her. Bo raised an eyebrow.

"This is worth hearing you talk about those clothes for an hour and a half, Kitty Kat," he said, grinning.

She was wearing a pink and black plaid schoolgirl skirt, along with a black spaghetti strap shirt with pink sparkly cherries on the chest and the word 'yummy' written in cursive underneath. Her curly hair had been plaited into two braids, one on each side of her head, tied at the ends with pink ponytail holders that had cherries on them. Pink barrettes were in her hair, right above her ears, and knee high black boots were on her feet.

Katrina sat down at the table with a smile, fingering a necklace that hung from around her throat. It was a silver chain with the name 'Vincent' written in cursive hanging from it.

Vincent choked on his milk. Bo laughed at him.

"Where the hell did you find that thing?" Bo asked the girl.

"At a store called Claire's," she answered. "It's a boyfriend necklace."

Before either man could reply, the front door of the house slammed open and Lester strode in. His eyes widened.

"Pancakes!" he cried.

Katrina pointed towards the center of the table, where there was a plate with five more pancakes on it. "You can have these," she said.

Lester grinned and took Katrina's empty seat. In no time at all, he had eaten the pancakes and was leaning back in the chair, letting out an enormous belch. Bo raised an eyebrow.

"Manners, Les!" He grinned at Katrina. "Remember there's a lady present."

"Oh. Sorry," Lester sighed, adjusting his pants. "Anyway, there's a reason why I came. There's a group of four headin' this way. All male, in a funny lookin' truck. It looks like them trucks in that Low Rider magazine."

Katrina's eyes widened. "Gangsters?"

Lester shrugged. "Don't know. But I shot out their tire back at the bridge. They're walkin' here, followin' Ma's signs."

"Ready to prove yourself?" Bo asked Katrina as he stood up.

She smiled. "It's a great opportunity for me to test out my new knife," she said merrily, brandishing the weapon.

"That's a damn beauty!" Lester told her, eying the knife admiringly.

"It is, isn't it?" Katrina asked. She pulled the bowie knife from the camouflage bag she had left on the table. "Do you like this one?"

Lester nodded. "That's a beaut."

She grinned at him. "Well then it's a good thing it's for you, eh?" Tossing the knife to him, Katrina watched happily as he studied the blade, smiling as he saw his name engraved on the hilt.

Before he could thank her, Katrina skipped to the front door.

"Let's go hunting," she laughed.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: **

"Shit, these ones have guns on them," Katrina said as she and Bo scoped out the four young men.

Leaning back on his heels, Bo nodded. "We'll have to be careful, then." He stood up, dusting off his jeans. "I'll go back and get things ready. Try and stall them, if you can."

She pouted. "But what if they try to hurt lil' ol' me?"

He laughed at her. "Then I'd feel pretty fucking sorry for them. Not only would they have to deal with your skinny ass, but they'd have to deal with three men who love you."

Katrina's eyebrow rose. "Three men who love me, eh?"

"After those pancakes, darlin', I should bow down and worship you."

She stood up and crossed her arms, tapping her foot impatiently.

"What?" Bo asked.

"I'm waiting for the bowing and the worshiping."

"Shut the hell up," he chuckled, pushing her towards the road. "Get out there and do what you're told."

Sticking her tongue out at him, Katrina turned around and sauntered towards the road. She ran stealthily up a path just behind the trees so she could get ahead of the four men and then composed herself. Plastering a sexy smile on her face, Katrina walked out into the road, pretending to be surprised.

The four men stared at her appreciatively. "Hey there, what's up?" one of them said, a tall boy almost out of his teenage years with dark hair and eyes.

Katrina looked up. "I'd have to say the sky's up right now," she said with a smile, then glanced down at the guy's crotch. "Unless you've got somethin' else that's _up_?"

The boy smirked. "Not unless you want it to be up, babe."

As the other boys snickered, Katrina licked her lips. "So who are you guys anyway, and what are you doing out here?"

The tall boy made a face. "Our car broke down. We need a tow truck. I'm Spooky, by the way." He held out his hand.

Katrina's eyebrow rose. "Spooky, eh? What's so spooky about you?"

"He's a scary guy," one of the others laughed. "I'm Bullet." The boy shook Katrina's hand before removing the blue bandanna from his bald head. He wiped the sweat from his face and smiled at her. "This is Killer . . ." he pointed towards the shortest guy in the group who had pimples all over his face, ". . . and this is Grumpy." He nudged a tall young man with black hair and grey-green eyes.

Katrina laughed. "Let me guess, he's a grumpy guy."

Everyone except Grumpy laughed along with her. "Ever heard of South Side Crazies? The gangsta' gangsta's from south of the Lou?" Killer asked.

"I can honestly say no, I've not," Katrina said, smiling and walking down the road, trying her hardest not to make fun of the young man.

"So what is your name?" Bullet asked.

"Katrina."

"Do you live out here? Like in that wax museum town?" Spooky asked. "There's a mechanic there, right?"

She nodded. "Yes. I live in Ambrose. Trudy's House of Wax is our claim to fame. And yes, there's a mechanic there. His name's Bo. He's really good."

"Fuck yeah," Bullet said, giving Spooky a shove. "See, your car will be just fine."

"So do you have a boyfriend?" Spooky asked, jogging to keep up with Katrina.

She shrugged. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because you're fucking hot," he said, leaning closer to her.

She smirked. "I hear that a lot. But sorry." She pointed to the boyfriend necklace.

Spooky sighed, but said nothing else.

By this time, they were coming up on the washed out strip of road that was right around the bend from Ambrose. Katrina hurried along, the guys behind her, until they came into Ambrose. She turned to the boys and smiled. "See that gas station right there?" she asked, pointing.

Spooky nodded. "Yes."

"That's Bo's place. He'll help you out."

"Aren't you coming with us?" Bullet asked.

She smiled at him. "Do you want me to?"

He and Spooky nodded. Katrina shrugged. "All right," she said. "I'll go."

They followed her to the gas station, which stood empty.

"There's no one here," Spooky told her.

"I'll go find Bo, he's probably up at the house. You guys just wait here," she said.

Killer and Bullet leaned up against the building, taking out cigarettes and lighting them up. Spooky spit on the ground and began pacing. Grumpy stared at her as she walked off, a menacing look in his eyes.

She hadn't gone far when she heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she saw Grumpy standing a few paces away. "What?" Katrina asked.

His lip curled. "I know you're a hillbilly and all that shit, but I just thought I'd let you know that where I'm from, it's not fucking cool to talk shit about someone's name."

Katrina's eyebrow rose sharply. "Really. So your mom named you Grumpy? I'm sorry. She must really have not liked you."

Grumpy's eyes narrowed. "Where I'm from, bitches know their fucking place. Guess I'll have to teach you yours."

She began to laugh, watching as his face grew angrier. "I'd like to see you try, you stupid fuck."

He reached into his baggy blue jeans, pulling out a small handgun. "All right, I will. Get your fucking bitch ass on your knees. You're going to give me a blowjob or I'm going to blow your fucking brains out."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: **

"Do you realize that you're making the biggest fucking mistake of your life?" Katrina asked with a smirk as she slowly lowered herself to her knees. She studied the gun held in front of her face and grinned.

"I think you're the one making the mistake, bitch," Grumpy snarled. He hit her in the face with the gun, knocking her backwards. "Now pull my pants down and get on with it. And I don't want an average blowjob. You'd better be the best I've ever had, or your brains will be all over this fucking mud."

Katrina pursed her lips and shrugged, not wanting to show him how much her jaw hurt. "Fine. Just remember, you asked for it."

"You'd better not bite me, either."

"I won't."

His penis was already hard as he pulled it out of his pants. Katrina made a face and then smirked. Her hand reached for her knife. In one quick sweep, she pulled it out and cut Grumpy's penis completely off. It fell to the dirt with a soft thumping sound.

Grumpy began to shriek in pain, the sound was so high pitched it was like the screams of a girl. Katrina stood up and kicked the body part away before kicking the young man in the wound. He fell to the ground, still shrieking. She moved behind him and dug the knife into his throat.

"Shut the fuck up," she whispered, "or I'll cut off your fucking head." He whimpered, but was otherwise silent. Katrina began to laugh. "Stupid mother fucker. Next time don't use a gun that doesn't even have a fucking trigger." She kicked the broken weapon, sending it tumbling into the bushes. "Now that wasn't your average blowjob, was it?" She pushed the knife harder against his throat, cutting the skin. "Say it was the best blow you've ever gotten."

Before he could say anything, the sounds of feet running echoed beside the buildings. Katrina's eyes narrowed as she heard the other three gangsters shouting to each other, obviously drawn by Grumpy's screams. Cursing under her breath, she forced the whimpering man up and around the side of a building. "Where the fuck are you, Bo?" she mumbled, kicking Grumpy in the side of the leg to hurry him along. She heard shouts as the other boys found the penis.

"For fuck's sake."

"Split up," she heard Bullet shout. Shoes began pounding away.

Katrina had just pushed Grumpy around to the front of the store when Killer stepped in front of her.

"What the . . ." he began, staring in horror at Grumpy.

She leaped at him as he pulled out his gun. In horror, she noticed that this one didn't seem to be broken in any way. He was quicker than she, however, and aimed the gun at her chest.

"You fucking bitch," Killer said.

The sound of a gunshot rang through the air.

Katrina screamed, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Don't be such a pussy," Bo said as he strode up clutching his shotgun.

She opened her eyes to see Killer facedown on the ground, blood pooling around his head. Grumpy was slumped against the corner of the building, wheezing and gasping.

"What the fuck happened to this one?" Bo asked.

"I cut his pecker off," Katrina answered. "Fucker tried to make me give him head. Used a broken fucking gun to try and force me, too."

"Did he, now?" Bo's eyes glinted with malice as he regarded the sobbing man before him.

Lester came around the corner, gripping his new bowie knife with a grin. "Want me to take this 'un to Vince?" he asked, nudging Killer's head with his foot.

Bo nodded. "Yup. Kitty Kat and I are going to go take care of the other two fuckers." He pointed to Grumpy. "And take this one up to the house and tie him up. We're going to have some fun with him. Seems like he enjoys tryin' to stick shit in pretty mouths that he shouldn't."

Lester raised an eyebrow. "Is that right? Well I know just what to do with him." He cackled and brought a piece of rope from his pocket, tying Grumpy's hands together. "Get up, y' piece of shit. Grab your friend there and start pullin'."

"Now, Kitty Kat, let's go hunting, as you so nicely put it," Bo said, taking the girl by the arm.

"Sounds like they're heading back for the gas station," Katrina said only seconds later.

"I'll meet up with 'em there," Bo told her, handing her the shotgun. "Keep hidden, but keep an eye out on what's goin' on."

She nodded and crouched behind a yellow truck, keeping her gaze on Bo. He strode up to Spooky and Bullet, asking them what was going on.

"We need a hospital. Our homeboy's been . . ." Spooky began, but lost the courage to say it.

"Some bitch sliced him up," Bullet said.

Katrina could not hear Bo's reply, but she could tell the two men didn't like what he said. Spooky shook his head, while Bullet looked as if he were about to have a tantrum. The conversation grew heated, with everyone talking at once.

"Fuck you and this hillbilly fucking town," Bullet said finally, shoving Bo hard in the chest. "Come on, Spooky, let's find Killer and Grumpy and get the fuck out of here."

The two men began to walk away. Katrina stood up slowly and moved out of her hiding place, shotgun in hand. "Hello boys," she said with a smile.

Spooky's arm flailed out to keep Bullet from stepping forward.

"You fucking bitch," Bullet shouted.

Katrina grinned as Bo drew his knife and advanced on the young men.

"What's so fucking funny?" Bullet spat.

"This . . ." she answered, pulling the trigger.

Spooky let out a hoarse cry and fell to the ground, covered in blood. Bullet leaped backward, shouting in horror. He glanced up at Katrina, who was reloading the gun, and caught sight of Bo with the knife in his hand.

He began to shake. "F . . . f . . . fuck."

Katrina watched in disgust as urine pooled around the terrified teen. "For fuck's sake, Bo, this one's pissed himself," she laughed.

"Pussy ass bastard," Bo said just before slicing Bullet's throat.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: Repent from All Your Sins**

"Vincent, get up here, _now_!" Bo shouted down the tunnel leading to the House of Wax. "We've got them."

"God, I'm exhausted," Katrina sighed, throwing herself down on the desk chair.

"Take your pretty little ass into the living room, Kitten," Bo told her. "We're going to have a little fun with that peckerless fuck that tried to . . ."

"I _know_ what he did, you don't have to remind me," she answered, twirling a curl between her fingers. "I'll be in there in a minute. Don't be so bossy, Bo-Bo."

Bo rolled his eyes, flung up his hands, and walked out. Katrina heard a thump and a moan that could only mean Bo had just kicked Grumpy. Moments later, Vincent walked up out of the trapdoor, rubbing flakes of wax from his hands.

"Why didn't he just bring them over?" he asked her. Seeing the bruise on her jaw, his eye narrowed. "What happened?"

"Bo-Bo wants to play with one of them," she explained. "I'll let him tell you why, since he likes broadcasting it over and over again. The story goes with my bruise."

Vincent shrugged and followed her into the living room, where Bo and Lester stood taunting Grumpy with their knives. "What's going on?" Vincent asked.

Bo turned to his brother with a smirk. "This one tried to mouth-fuck your girl."

Vincent's eye widened and he turned to Katrina. "He did _what_?"

She shrugged and plopped down onto the couch. "He tried to make me give him head. Pulled a broken ass gun on me and everything. But don't worry, babe, his shit didn't even come close to making it into my mouth. I cut the fucker off before he got the chance."

Vincent walked right up to Grumpy and kicked him in his wound. As the young man cried out, clutching his knees to his chest, Vincent kicked him in the ribs several times in succession.

"Hold on Vince, I want to take more time with him than that," Bo ordered. He reached down and pulled Grumpy up. "So you thought you'd teach our lil' Kitty Kat here a lesson, did you? Seems more like _you_ need a lesson . . . in how to treat a lady. You don't just go up to someone and stick your fuckin' pecker in their mouth."

"Look who's talking," Katrina chuckled.

Bo grinned at her. "Yeah, but I didn't do it to _you_, darlin', and therein lies the difference." He turned his attention back to Grumpy. "It's playtime, mother fucker," he said menacingly.

Katrina laughed and tossed her hair, waiting to see what he would do next. It seemed that they had "played" with others before, because Bo shoved the young man back on the floor and all three Sinclairs began beating and punching him. Sighing in satisfaction, Katrina sat on the couch, playing with her hair and watching the entertainment. Once the men were done beating Grumpy up, Bo glanced at Katrina, his eyes glinting with sadistic excitement.

"Watch this, Kitty Kat. It's all for you. See how we protect our women?" To Grumpy, he said, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ died for your sins so you could obtain eternal life?"

Grumpy's sobs turned to hysterical whimpering.

Bo kicked him. "I asked you a question, mother fucker."

Grumpy swallowed hard and nodded.

Bo grinned. "Good. Then you won't mind suffering in His name."

Lester gripped one side of the terrified teen, while Bo lifted him from the other. Vincent walked into another room. Katrina could hear shuffling around in drawers, and moments later, Vincent returned, holding spikes and a hammer in his hands. Katrina sat up straighter, her eyes wide with excitement. She followed them outside as they drug Grumpy out into the woods, heading towards one of the biggest trees there.

"All right, mother fucker," Bo said, pushing the teen against the tree. "Do you repent from all your sins?"

Grumpy was too hysterical to say a word. Bo pulled out his knife and pressed it to the teen's throat. "I said, do you repent from all your sins?"

"I . . . I . . ." Grumpy stammered. "I do!" The last came out like a howl.

Lester held Grumpy's arms up against the tree, straight up above his head.

"Good. Shall we make an Act of Contrition?" Bo asked, grinning madly. Without waiting for an answer he began to recite "O My God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Your just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, My God, Who are all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the unnecessary occasions of sin. Amen."

By the end of this, Bo's face had taken on a terrifying, evil expression. Katrina thought that if it were possible for his eyes to turn red, they would. She grasped Vincent's hand, feeling fear of Bo for the first time.

Spittle was spraying from Bo's lips as he grabbed one of the spikes from Vincent. "Let me grant you absolution, you sinner in the eyes of the Lord!" He began to pound the spike into Grumpy's hand, impaling it into the tree. "God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us, for the forgiveness of sins, through the ministry of the Church. May God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father . . ." He took the other spike and pounded it into Grumpy's other hand.

". . . The son . . ."

Pound.

Pound.

"And the holy fuckin' spirit."

Pound.

Katrina pushed her body as close to Vincent as she could. The rage and madness in Bo's eyes terrified her. Vincent put his arm around her, rubbing her shoulder with his thumb. Bo turned to look at Katrina with a smile.

"So what do you think, Kitty Kat? You feel better now?"

She forced herself to look grateful, even though she wanted to puke her guts out.

"Of course," she purred softly.

Bo nodded and walked away with Lester in tow. Vincent watched him go with concern in his eye before pulling out his knife and slitting Grumpy's throat.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22: Natural Born Killers **

Four days later, Katrina was watching Vincent put the finishing touches to Bullet's face with a tiny paintbrush.

"I'm bored," she told him languidly, heaving herself off of his worktable.

"Why?" Vincent asked. "There's plenty to do."

She sniffed. "Like what?"

His eye smiled at her from behind the mask. "You could dust the House of Wax."

Katrina stuck her tongue out at him. "That sounds like big fun." She sat quietly for a moment, chewing on her sparkly pink fingernails. "Vincent, is Bo . . . you know . . . _right in the head_?"

Vincent turned to look at her. "What do you mean?"

"What happened to him when you guys were little?"

He put the paintbrush he was holding into a bowl of water. "I don't think . . . he would like it if I told you."

"I've seen the scars on his wrists. What did your mother do?"

"My mother tried to control him!" Vincent said defensively.

Katrina bit her lip. "I'm sorry. But I just want to know."

He sighed. "Bo was always violent. He got in fights all the time at school, and almost killed someone twice. No one wanted to say anything because he was the doctor's son."

"Yes, and?"

"He would hit and kick Mama and Dad. They strapped his arms and legs to his high chair and left him there until he behaved. Father Carl was always at our house, forcing him to confess his sins. Sometimes he and Mama would shut the door and do things to him. I don't know what . . . all I could hear was his screaming. It got worse when Mama got a tumor in her brain. She thought he was the Devil. She'd beat him with her Bible and force him to fast and pray for days on end."

"Poor Bo-Bo," Katrina murmured, horrified. "I can't believe it."

"Mama couldn't help it, Katrina. She was insane."

"Yes, but can't you see what she did was wrong? What would you say about my dad beating me?"

Vincent stared at her. "That's . . . wrong."

She shook her head. "It's the same thing, Vincent."

He said nothing, turning to pick up his paintbrush again.

"Vincent?"

Katrina waited a few more moments, but when he still didn't answer she stood up and stalked out. Vincent laid the paintbrush down gently and gripped the corners of his table, thinking hard. _"Mama was a good woman . . . she took care of me and loved me. Bo was out of control."_

But somehow, he didn't seem too sure.

Katrina exited the trapdoor and slammed it down, huffing loudly. She stalked into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator before settling herself on the couch to watch some television.

"For God's fucking sake," she shouted a few minutes later.

"What the fuck?" Bo asked as he came down the stairs.

"The television only gets two channels!"

"Yeah."

"So that sucks."

"I take it you're bored."

She downed the remainder of her beer. "However did you guess?"

He took a seat across from her so he could pull on his boots. Katrina's eyes rested on the scars on his wrists and she began to twirl her hair idly. Bo caught her gaze and anger flashed across his face.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" he asked coldly.

"Hmm?" Her eyes widened and she looked away. "Nothing."

"Do you like what Mama did to me?" Bo asked, shoving his right wrist under her nose.

"No. I don't."

He sneered at her. "Mama would have loved your Pa, Kitty Kat. They were two fucking peas out of the same mother fucking pod."

Katrina looked up at him and nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry, Bo."

He stared down at her for several long moments, the fire in his eyes dying down. "I'm not. I turned out fine, didn't I?" He threw himself back down on his chair. "You got the shit beat out of you all the time and you turned out fine too."

She let out a mirthless chuckle. "Some people might say that killin' people might come from the fact that Pa abused me. Troubled childhood and all that shit."

Bo nodded once. "Maybe so, darlin'. I don't believe in all that doctor bullshit though. Psychiatrists and psychologists and all . . . they fucking piss me the fuck off. They blame shit on your past, what you've done and what happened to you to make you do it. All I found out when I had one was that Mama and Dad and Father Carl punished me, it was for doing something I wanted to do in the first place."

"I'm confused."

He leaned over, grinning widely. "Are you tryin' to tell me that you didn't want to run a knife through someone's body since you were little? Does it really come from getting' the shit beat out of you?"

Katrina laughed. "So you're telling me that you've always wanted to kill someone?"

Bo nodded, a small smirk playing about his lips.

Her laughter trailed off as she stared into his serious yet maniacal expression. She swallowed hard. "You're right," she said finally. "The first time I killed someone, I didn't hesitate. I just did it. It was like . . . like nothing. I didn't care. It was fun. And I got addicted."

"When was your first?"

Katrina smiled. "When I was nine. I was coming home from a friend's house and some redneck ass fourteen year old boy pulled me into the bushes tryin' to fuck me. I carried a screwdriver around back then. Stabbed him in the neck with it."

"Men just can't resist you, can they?"

She shook her head. "I guess not. Men in this state are child molesting rapist assholes."

"I don't like kids. That's just too fucked up for me."

Katrina laughed at him. "Wow, something fucked up that you won't do. You're a sadistic pig."

Bo shrugged. "Yeah, but you know you love it."

"Do you think you'll ever stop someday, you know, live a normal life?"

"Hell no. What fun is there in a white picket fence and a fat fucking cat on the rug?"

"Nothing interesting to me, not right now anyway. You're right. Fucking with people is just way too fun."

"Natural born killers," he said, grabbing her hand and kissing it. "Cheers to us."


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23:**

Katrina and Vincent avoided each other over the next week. She was still angry with him about ignoring her and defending his mother over Bo, and Vincent was still sorting out his feelings about what had happened in his childhood. He spent his time in his workshop, nervously tidying up the room or working on one of his paintings. Katrina followed Bo around Ambrose, learning to do things like fix the generator and change the oil in a car. She helped him inspect the area surrounding the town, searching for fresh victims and ensuring the town remained hidden.

In a way, Bo was glad for the company. Although he couldn't stand being around females for long, he did enjoy having someone to tease who would actually say something back to him and wouldn't just stand there and take it. He also found that he loved teaching her his favorite hobby . . . torture. Unbeknownst to Vincent, Bo had converted a small, run-down barn into a place where he could indulge in sadistic tastes of his own without having to turn the victims into wax later on. He would pick up female hitchhikers or prostitutes and bring them to the barn, where he would rape and torture the women over a period of days before killing her.

He decided to show her the barn as a sort of last test, to see if it would freak her out enough to try to leave. The idea came to him as they were leaving Lester's home . . . a small cabin deep in the woods about ten miles from Ambrose . . . and passed by a woman walking alone on the side of the road.

Bo side-glanced Katrina, who sat in the passenger's seat fiddling with her knife. "Do you know how to keep a secret, Kitty Kat?"

She looked over at him and smiled. "What kind of secret?"

"One from Vincent."

Her brows met in the center of her forehead. "Why?"

"It's a little somethin' I've been doin' for a while. A little project of my own."

"How come Vincent can't know."

"Just can you fuckin' keep a secret or not?"

Katrina frowned, but her girlish curiosity got the better of her. "I can. I promise."

Bo grinned at her. "All right." He turned the truck around.

"What _are _you doing?"

"Ask that girl if she wants a ride."

A smirk spread across her lips and her eyes widened with understanding. "Oh-ho." She smiled brightly and leaned out the truck window as Bo pulled up alongside the girl. "Hey there, sugar! Need a ride?"

The young woman, appearing to be in her late teens, looked up from under the brim of her wide cowboy hat. "Where y' goin'?"

Katrina glanced back at Bo. "We're going to Silverton."

The woman's brown eyes had a relieved look in them. "Thank goodness y'all came by. That's where I'm goin'."

"Well get on in," Katrina said, opening the door and getting out. "You ride bitch, I don't like doing it with my own brother."

The woman smiled uneasily, but nodded and slid into the middle seat.

"My name's Meredith," the woman said after settling herself into the truck. She brushed a mousy-brown lock of hair out of her face and grinned at Katrina and Bo.

"Nice to meet you, Meredith," Katrina said in a sugary tone. "I'm Kitty and this is my big brother Bo."

"Mind if I smoke?" Meredith asked, pulling a pack of Marlboro's out of her backpack.

"Not at all, if you share," Bo said, flashing a sexy smile at her.

"Sure." Meredith stuck three cigarettes into her mouth and lit them up before passing one to Bo and the other to Katrina.

Bo's eyebrow rose as he watched Katrina take a long drag of her cigarette. "You shouldn't be smokin', baby sister," he said with an amused look.

She stuck her tongue out at him and took another drag. "So what are you doing out here?" Katrina asked Meredith.

"I'm going to catch a bus over in Silverton," Meredith said happily. "I'm going out to California to visit my boyfriend."

"Your boyfriend's letting you walk that far?" Katrina asked.

Meredith's eyes widened a little. "He don't know I'm comin'. It's a surprise."

"Ohhhh!" Katrina exclaimed, winking at Meredith. "Did you bring any lingerie with you?"

"What?" Meredith asked, confused.

"Did you bring lingerie?"

Meredith's cheeks turned red. "Not that it's any of your business, but yeah."

"Not my business?" Katrina asked, looking over at Bo with exaggerated incredulity. "I'd say everything you do's my business, sugar. We are givin' you a ride, and all."

Meredith blinked once and leaned over Katrina to flick her cigarette out of the window. "You know what? I think I'm gonna walk."

Bo began to laugh. "What do you mean, darlin'?"

"I think I'll walk," Meredith repeated. "Let me out."

"I'm bein' nice here," Bo protested with a smirk.

"I want to walk. Let me out!" Meredith's wide chocolate eyes stared over at Bo, who grinned at her.

"But Kitty doesn't want you to leave," he said. "See?"

Meredith turned quickly to see Katrina pointing a gun at her face. She began to scream.

_A/N: The next chapter will be pretty violent and very dark. If you're not supposed to read M rated stories DO NOT READ THE NEXT CHAPTER!!_


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24: **

_A/N: Do not read unless you like sadistic stuff . . . this is dark so be warned!_

A loud thump rang out through the derelict old barn as Bo threw Meredith into a chair. Katrina helped him chain her down, laughing at Meredith's tears.

"What are you going to do?" Katrina asked once the terrified girl was secure.

"Kitty Kat, how'd you like a little tutoring session?" Bo asked.

"In what?"

He went over to a broken cabinet and pulled out a toolbox. Katrina peered inside to see a wide variety of tools, all encrusted with rust and blood.

"What's all this?" Katrina asked.

"My toys, darlin'."

Katrina felt a shudder of fear crawl up her spine, the same kind she felt when she had watched Bo torture Grumpy. She forced herself to remain impassive.

"I've been doin' this for a while," Bo said with a grin. "It's fun. Relieves tension and all that shit."

"So why doesn't Vincent know?"

"Vincent's a killer, but he's no torturer. He'd be pissed 'cause I'm wastin' valuable art opportunities."

"Why are you showing me then?"

Bo scrutinized her for a moment. "'Cause you got potential. You'll appreciate what I've learned."

She turned away, a feeling of something she couldn't place welling up inside her. Her body jumped a little as she felt his hands on her shoulders.

"Why do you fight it?" Bo asked, his mouth close to her ear.

"Fight what?"

"What you want to do." He turned her around slowly, a mad little grin on his face. "You want to slice that girl up. You want to carve your initials into her skin and see the blood drip onto the floor. You want to hear her screaming. Give into it, Kitty Kat. You already enjoy killing, darlin'. Now enjoy what leads up to it. You liked doin' it to your dad." His fingers ran down her bare arms to grasp her cold fingers.

Bo pulled her over to Meredith, pressing his knife into her hand. He turned her to face the crying young woman and his fingers traced back up her arm, leaving gooseflesh behind it. His mouth touched her ear. "I'll tell you what to do . . ."

Katrina's breath came slow and heavy, her heart beat wildly as her fingers grasped the knife's hilt. Bo's lips stayed close by her ear, whispering orders. Her hand rose of its own accord and began to cut Meredith's skin where Bo told her.

The screams that came out of the girl were deafening. Bo's hands slid down to Katrina's waist, clutching her tightly as his whispers became more and more excited. Katrina felt every apprehension slide away to be replaced by glee. Her handiwork became more and more deep, causing more damage. Meredith's once tanned skin was soon coated with blood. Bo, cackling wildly in her ear, whispered one last order.

Katrina smiled, her eyes glazed with pleasure, and stabbed the blade into Meredith's body, over and over again. She pumped the knife in and out of the screaming girl, only vaguely aware of Bo pressing against her, his body trembling. His fingernails dug deeply into her hips, ripping through the skin. Katrina's body jolted against his and she began to laugh.

"Do you like it, bitch?" she shrieked, hardly knowing what she was saying. "Say you like it! Is it big enough for you?"

Blood gushed from the wounds, spilling onto the floor, splashing onto Bo's shoes and Katrina's sandals. Katrina wiggled her toes, pressing them harder and harder into the sticky red substance as if she were playing in mud. Meredith let out one last bubbling shriek before stiffening up and becoming silent. Bo slammed his hips against her back and shuddered. A violent tremble of pleasure wracked her body and she leaned back against him, breathing heavily. She could feel Bo's chest heaving behind her. With a smooth motion, Katrina flicked the blood from the knife, leaving a spatter of crimson along the floor and up a wall, before swinging it in an arc to embed it into Meredith's forehead.

Katrina's hands fell limply to her sides and she tried to catch her breath. Never before had she felt so exhilarated, so fulfilled. Bo turned her around slowly and wiped blood from her face with his thumb. He kissed her forehead gently.

"That was fun, darlin'."

She nodded. "It was."

"I told you so."

"I want more." Katrina turned away and walked over to the door. "It's like . . . like the best orgasm ever."

"You sure made me . . ."

"Shut up," she said, glancing over at him. "I feel like I just cheated on Vincent."

Bo lit a cigarette and shrugged. "We didn't fuck."

"It feels like we did."

"But we didn't. It was all in fun. Do you think Vince's gonna like doin' this kind of shit?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Did you like it?"

"Yes."

"That was only a taster. I'll show you much better ways to . . ."

"Vincent can't know. And don't think . . ."

"It's not like that, darlin'. It's nothin' either you or me can explain. But it's definitely not fuckin', or cheatin', or like I want to get with you or something." He took a long drag of his cigarette. "I recognized myself in you the moment I saw you cutting off your daddy's fingers, Kitty Kat. You may fight it, but it'll get you in the end. Myself . . . I never fought it. I always gave in. How do you think I learned all this shit?"

Katrina nodded. "All right then. I'll take your _tutoring lessons_." She grinned. "I feel so . . . so . . . I don't know but it's _cool_!"

Bo grinned back and motioned towards Meredith's lifeless body. "So help me get rid of this. I'll leave it in back so Lester can pick it up."


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25: **

Katrina lay back in her bed, relaxing after her shower. It had taken quite a while to get all of Meredith's blood off of her body and now she was exhausted. She rolled over to stare out the window, still feeling guilty over what she had done with Bo. Part of her feelings were about what Vincent's reaction would be if he knew the sexual undertones of what they did, but the other was obsessed with wondering . . . _was she truly a natural born killer? _She reached out and pulled a joint and a lighter out of her nightstand drawer, leaning back on the wall so she could smoke the marijuana.

When she was through, Katrina's guilt was still too much for her. She realized she didn't care so much about the fact that she had just tortured someone she didn't know, who probably didn't deserve it . . . her real worry was about Vincent. Katrina sighed and slipped some jeans on over her sleeping boxers. _"I'll apologize about the mother thing . . ."_ she thought, _". . . then I won't feel so bad over the other."_ She headed downstairs and glanced into the living room, where Bo was asleep on the couch. Tiptoeing over as quietly as she could, Katrina pulled an afghan over him and grabbed a second one for herself. Bo mumbled incoherently as she hurried away.

Down in the tunnel, Katrina made a face as she walked, not liking walking down there by herself at night. She could hear Vincent snoring quietly. He was lying sprawled on his back in the bed, wearing no shirt. Katrina grinned and walked quietly up to him, eyeing his muscular chest appreciatively. Slowly, she slid into the bed, straddling Vincent's groin.

"Vincent?" Katrina whispered.

He didn't move.

"Viiiincent."

He wriggled a little. She smirked as she felt him getting aroused beneath her. Leaning close to his ear, she whispered his name again. He shifted his position and mumbled something she couldn't hear. Katrina reached down and took the sides of his wax mask in her fingertips. In a flash, Vincent's eye opened and he flipped her over onto her back on the mattress, holding her arms painfully above her head. She laughed at him, his gaze raging at her from beneath the mask, and lifted her head. As quickly as he had flipped her, Katrina bit the wax and pulled, ripping it off his face.

Vincent gasped as she flicked her head to one side, sending the mask flying. The next second, her lips were on his and her tongue was in his mouth. His hands ran down her arms to her torso, stopping at her waist. She cupped his face in her hands and smiled at him.

"I wanted to say sorry," Katrina whispered, kissing his nose. "And I miss you."

He let out a little breathy sigh of relief. "I missed you . . ." Vincent whispered in her ear, his voice hoarse again from not using it.

She pulled him back down into the bed and folded his arms around her. "What have you been doing all this time?" Katrina asked.

"Painting. Sketching. Putting the last touches on those men."

"I want to see them, and Vera," she said.

"I didn't make her Miss Ambrose," Vincent said, a little defensively.

"That's all right. Remember, I'm sorry about that too," Katrina told him, snuggling closer to his warm body.

"That was my fault."

Katrina didn't answer and ran her fingers along the top of his hand. They lay in companionable silence until Vincent asked a question, the one she had been dreading.

"What did you do this week?"

She hesitated for a moment before answering. "Nothing really. I just hung out with Bo and Lester." Katrina paused as his body stiffened. Guilt racked her conscience and she bit her lip. "Bo showed me how to do stuff around here," Katrina said quickly before Vincent could get too jealous. "I know how to change the oil in a car now. And I know which part is the engine and which is a fan belt."

To her surprise, Vincent chuckled.

"You didn't know this before?"

She shook her head. "No. I had no reason to."

"Is that all you did?"

"We went to Lester's house. I went with him to pick up dead shit once. It wasn't fun. But he enjoyed the company." She laughed at the recollection. "He wouldn't stop talking about knives. Oh, and Bo and I finished hiding that one road out of Ambrose, you know, the one that goes straight to the highway. Bo said people could get away too easy through it, and that too many people would come through here."

She hesitated, waiting for Vincent to reply but he said nothing. Katrina turned around in the bed so she was facing him. He had an odd expression on his countenance that she couldn't place. "What?" she asked.

"What is the point of art no one will ever see, unless they're going to die?" he asked finally.

Katrina pursed her lips. She saw his point, it had been something she had wondered about but didn't want to bring up. "Well . . . they still see it," she answered lamely.

"Bo wants everything his own way."

She nodded, not knowing what else to say.

"If he wanted you, he would take you."

Katrina shook her head. "No he wouldn't. I wouldn't let him." She bit the inside of her cheek, remembering what had happened in the barn.

"What is it?" Vincent asked, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. "You seem . . . different."

"Nothing, babe," Katrina said, forcing lightheartedness into her tone. "I've just been missing you."

He pulled her closer, so their foreheads were touching. After a few minutes, Katrina dozed off. Vincent stayed awake, touching her as if he were still unsure she was actually there.

"_I don't want her to leave. I have to find some way to keep her here," _he thought, stroking her cheek with his thumb. _"She's used to the world outside Ambrose, not a life set apart from everyone else." _

Suddenly an idea came to him. His eye brightened. He would get her a gift. One that would make her feel less lonely, less bored . . . and that would show her he cared about her.

"_I'll talk to Bo tomorrow morning,"_ Vincent thought as he drifted off into sleep.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26: **

_A/N: This is a long chapter because it has sexual content that only 18 and older should read. Don't say I didn't warn ya! And yes, it's smut. Cheers!_

A few days later, Vincent and Bo were in the living room of the Sinclair house, talking quietly as Katrina walked down the stairs. Her eyebrow rose as she came in, as if she didn't believe what she was seeing. The brothers broke away, guilty looks on their faces.

"What's going on?" she asked them.

They shook their heads. "Nothin'," Bo snapped at her, "and you're late."

She shrugged. "So? Lester won't mind. I don't get why I _have _to go anyway. It's not fair. I don't like picking dead shit up off the ground! It smells!"

"He needs the help, darlin'," Bo told Katrina in an exasperated tone. "And Vincent won't leave Ambrose. I've got other shit to do. So go on, get!" He mock-kicked her bottom, sending her hurrying out the door.

"Fine," she snarled. "Later you two." Katrina turned and made a face at them before striding out the door, hips swaying unconcernedly.

The moment they heard Lester's truck driving away, Vincent and Bo walked down to the pet shop in town, where they had stored some boxes . . .

_Later That Day . . ._

Katrina walked into the Sinclair living room, complaining loudly. She looked filthy, and was covered in blood. Bo came out of the kitchen and started laughing at her.

"Don't you look a sight," he sniggered.

"Fuck you . . ." she began, then caught sight of what was in the living room. "You . . . you . . . oh!" Katrina tiptoed to the brand new television that now sat atop several crates in a corner, next to a box filled with used CD's and VHS tapes. "Oh! Oh!"

"It's all for you, Kitty Kat," Bo said with a sly grin. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "It was Vincent's idea. But I helped." Bo grinned and threw a dust rag at her. "Now you have to clean up this living room so it's as good as your new TV, got it?"

Katrina nodded, still staring enraptured at the contents of the box. "Marilyn Manson! And oh! Oh yay, they have Pantera too!" She giggled wildly, then suddenly jumped backwards and shook her head. "No, I can't touch it yet. Not smelling like this. I have to go take a shower!" She gasped. "What if Vincent sees me like this?"

Bo watched in amusement as the girl leapt up and rushed upstairs, her face still pale with shock. He glanced over at the long, dusty draperies on the window, where Vincent stood watching the proceedings unnoticed.

"I told you she'd like it," Vincent muttered.

An hour later, Katrina traipsed down to the living room, dressed in an old T shirt and cotton pants, ready to clean as Bo had ordered. She looked around the room, still not seeing Vincent in his hiding place. With a wild giggle, she pulled a tape from the box and stuck it into the video player. It was one that had a lot of music videos on it.

Vincent stood quietly behind the curtain, watching as Katrina threw down the dust rag and began to sing. It made him happier than ever that he had gotten Bo to steal the VHS tapes and the video player and new television. He glanced at the singer on the screen and a pang of jealousy gnawed at his heart. Did she wish he looked like that man? Is that why she was watching this?

She began to dance and he became incapable of thought.

_The most loneliest day of my life_

_The most loneliest day of my life . . ._

Katrina turned and saw him fidget with his mask behind the curtain. Smiling, she walked over to him and pulled him out, wrapping her arms around him.

_And if you go, I want to go with you_

_And if you die, I want to die with you . . ._

He listened carefully as she sang along with the song. Her voice was beautiful.

_Such a lonely day, and it's mine_

_Today that I'm glad I survived._

The song ended. Vincent looked down at Katrina's black curls. She held him tighter and looked up at him. There was a rosy color in her cheeks, as if she were blushing.

"Vincent?"

He smiled at her. "What?"

"It's true, you know."

"What is?"

She reached up slowly and gently removed his mask.

"That if you go, I want to go with you. And if you die, I want to die with you."

His breath caught in his throat. "What . . . what are you saying?"

"You great big retard. I'm telling you that I love you." She drew his face down and kissed him deeply. "Come with me."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him upstairs, giggling wildly. "Come on."

He followed her upstairs to what he now considered "her" room. Katrina pushed him in, slamming the door behind her.

"Vincent . . ." she whispered, kissing him again. Her hand reached behind her and turned on the boombox before pulling him closer to her.

_I would die for you_

_I would die for you_

_I've been dyin' just to feel you by my side_

_To know that you're mine_

She kissed his wax face softly before pushing him down onto the bed. Vincent stared nervously at her as she slowly pulled the dress over her head, revealing a lacy sapphire blue bra and matching panties. With a smile, Katrina straddled him and reached up to pull off his mask. He grabbed her wrists, shaking his head.

"I want _you_, Vincent. Not the mask," she whispered.

He let out a quiet sob, wondering how anyone so beautiful could want him as much as Katrina did.

"Shh. Don't cry, Vincent. It's okay."

She slipped the mask off before he could stop her. Before he knew it, her lips were on his.

_I would cry for you_

_I would cry for you_

_I would wash away your pain with all my tears_

_And drown your fear_

Katrina's fingertips massaged his scalp as she kissed him harder. He reached out hesitantly to run his hands along her thighs up to the small of her back. She moaned, arching towards him. That was all it took.

Vincent flipped her over onto the bed and began kissing her back . . . on her lips, cheeks, ears, and neck. She let out little mewling cries of pleasure as he started to bite her, leaving marks down her neck and chest to her navel before biting her on the stomach. She took hold of his sweater and began tugging it off. The feeling of her fingers brushing against his back and chest drove him into a frenzy. He pushed himself off of her so he could remove his jeans and underwear.

When his naked body pressed up against hers for the first time, Vincent felt as if he were in heaven.

_I will pray for you_

_I will pray for you_

_I will sell my soul for something pure and true_

_Someone like you_

Katrina raked her fingernails along his spine as she bit his shoulder. He buried his head into her neck.

"Vincent . . ." she cried. He looked up at her as she wiggled out of her bra and began tugging on the panties. "I want you."

Vincent stared down at the sight of her naked breasts and took a nipple in his mouth.

Touching. Tasting.

Her moans were driving him wild.

_See your face every place that I walk in_

_Hear your voice every time that I'm talkin'_

_You will believe in me_

_And I will never be ignored_

He began to kiss her all over her body, trailing down her stomach to her thighs and up again, kissing her palms and each fingertip. She bit his wrist and then his thumb, nibbling his arm all the way up to his neck.

Vincent's lips found hers again, his thumbs traced her cheekbones, down to her jawline and back.

"I love you," she whispered in his ear.

"I love you," he mumbled against her mouth.

_I will burn for you_

_Feel pain for you_

_I will twist a knife and bleed my achin' heart_

_And tear it apart_

Katrina's nails scratched his chest so hard they drew blood. Glazed eyes widened, and soft lips touched the wounds, nursing them with a hot tongue.

Vincent drew his breath in sharply as she leaned back on the pillow, her lips slightly scarlet with his blood. She pulled his head down and kissed him. The metallic taste of his own blood caused him to feel faint.

His teeth grazed her neck and sank down. He wanted the sweeter taste of her own life force to drive his bitter one away.

She cried out, bucking against him. Vincent could feel the heat radiating from Katrina's body, making him feel like an inferno was consuming him.

_I will lie for you _

_Beg and steal for you_

_I will crawl on hands and knees until you see_

_You're just like me_

He ran a hand along the moist skin of her stomach, pressing his forehead against hers as she opened her legs for him. He was unsure of what to do, but it seemed like everything was simply coming naturally.

Vincent pressed his body against hers gently. The hot, wet sensations he was feeling made him gasp.

"God, Katrina . . ."

Her arm clung around his neck, her other hand clutched his shoulder. She was whimpering into his ear, her mouth grazing the tender skin.

He pressed forward more and felt her cry out. Whether it was in pain or pleasure, he didn't know. But he could not stop to find out.

_Violate all the love that I'm missing_

_Throw away all the pain that I'm living_

_You will believe in me_

_And I can never be ignored_

Something hot and crazed erupted inside him and he moved furiously against her, ignoring her pained cries. His hand traveled down her sweaty side, clutching her thigh in a tight grip. The other hand grasped a handful of hair as his mouth found hers.

The vibrations of her pained cries on his lips brought him back to reality, making him slow down a bit. He began to kiss her gently, licking her lips and tongue, reveling in the taste that was Katrina.

Vincent realized her moans had changed. They no longer rang with pain, but something sweeter, something that made him wish he would never have to leave the bed, never have to feel her body away from his.

His name was being whispered in his ear, over and over again.

_I will die for you_

_I will kill for you_

_I will steal for you_

_I'd do time for you_

_I will wait for you_

_I'd make room for you_

_I'd sail ships for you_

_To be close to you_

_To be part of you_

'_Cause I believe in you_

_I believe in you_

_I would die for you_

"Vincent . . ." she cried. "Don't ever leave me."

"Kitty . . ." he moaned in her ear. "I would die for you."

_A/N: I don't own the song I would die for you by garbage or the lonely day song by system of a down._


	27. Chapter 27

_**Chapter 27:**_

_A/N: I'm soooooo sorry I didn't update sooner. I went on an impromptu vacation to my grandma's house. And I promised people I would update Tuesday, but on Monday my little sister crashed my grandma's car into the house. So no, I didn't get to go home that day. But I'm here now, and I'm sure you'll forgive me since I'm updating with so many new chappies!!! Enjoy!! And review . . . _

The next morning, Vincent and Katrina didn't come downstairs until late afternoon. They entered the kitchen, intent on getting something to eat, to see Bo at the table eating a bowl of cereal. His lips curved into a sly, amused grin and he began bouncing on the chair.

"Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Oh Vincent!" Bo cried out, mimicking Katrina's moans from the night before.

Vincent turned a bright shade of beet red. Katrina sniffed and sat down gingerly.

Bo burst into choking laughter as he watched her. "So are you going to be walkin' all bow-legged now? Need a cushion or anything?"

Katrina opened her mouth to retort but Vincent beat her to it. "Shut up Bo," he told his brother in an annoyed tone.

The other two stared in surprise. Bo shrugged and stood up. "I gotta go," he announced, "there's some shit I gotta do in town."

Vincent watched as his brother smirked at Katrina and nudged his head towards the door. The movement would have been imperceptible had Vincent not been looking directly at him. Blinking his eye from underneath the mask, he watched as Katrina's blue orbs took on a malicious, longing expression. Bo grinned back and crooked a finger. She wrinkled her nose and smiled. Vincent could see the faint regret in her expression as she and Bo exchanged knowing glances before he walked out the door.

A flicker of doubt rose within the deformed man, but it was quickly washed away when Katrina jumped out of her chair and threw her arms around him, her fingertips massaging his scalp lightly.

"Let's hurry and eat," she said, her lips close and hot against his ear. "Then we can take the chocolate syrup upstairs and have some _dessert._"

He looked at her, wondering what she meant. Katrina grinned and pressed her forehead against his so she could look in his eye as she talked.

"Who wants an ice cream sundae when I can have a Vincent sundae? I _love _licking chocolate syrup. Don't you?" Katrina laughed as understanding lit his eye and he turned a bright red.

Hours and two bottles of syrup later, Katrina was finishing dressing while an already showered and clothed Vincent lay on the bed watching her. Her eyes danced merrily at him as she slowly slid on a pair of very short denim cutoff shorts.

"You are beautiful," he said solemnly. She smiled.

"That's because everything you touch turns into something beautiful." He looked down at the bedsheets, embarrassed. Katrina leapt onto him, making him gasp for air. She grinned down at him and tickled the sides of his stomach. "Come on, sexy artist guy. Let's go get some fresh air."

Bo was just pulling into the driveway as they stepped outside. He flicked his cigarette onto the ground and pretended to have sex with his truck.

Katrina rolled her eyes. "You know you do that all the time anyway, Bo. Not just to make fun of us."

He chuckled at her lame joke and motioned for them to look in the bed of the truck. There were two teenagers tied up on the dirty metal, a male and female. "These two were gettin' it on in a car not far from here. Thought I'd punish them for fornicating."

Vincent sighed and went to help his brother haul the unconscious people down to the workshop. "You coming?" he asked Katrina.

She made a face. "Not this time." Smiling, she wrapped her arms around her body and hugged herself.

He smiled back, knowing all she wanted to do was sit and think about the night before. After swinging the male onto his back, Vincent followed Bo to the House of Wax. Katrina went up onto the porch and sat on the swing, enjoying the late afternoon light. Before long, Bo came out of the house, having come back through the tunnel, and sat on a chair across from the girl.

"If you make fun of me . . ."

"I ain't gonna make fun of you, Kitty Kat," Bo chuckled. "I was actually wonderin' if you'd like to accompany me to Woodston, seeing as Vincent will be a bit busy for awhile."

"To do what?"

"Well . . . there's a bar in Woodston that'd let you in, if you're with me. We can celebrate the loss of your innocence, or some shit like that."

Katrina laughed. "The loss of my _innocence_?"

Shrugging, Bo motioned towards the truck. "I already told Vincent that I'm taking you out tonight. He won't mind."

"All right, I'll go," she said finally. "But you better not get me so piss assed drunk that I puke, Bo-Bo."

_An Hour Later . . ._

_Henry's Place _would qualify as a piece of crap no matter whose standards were being used. Katrina made a face as she chugged down the rest of her rum and cola, her gaze glancing over the filthy tables and redneck clientele. She quickly learned to remain as close to Bo as possible, any time she strayed away someone tried to hit on her. The more belligerently drunken males were more physical about trying to convince her to have sex, but both she and Bo were too relaxed and intoxicated to want to start a fight.

"So you finally did it, huh?" Bo asked after their fourth drink. "Got Vincent to screw you."

She glared at him. "I told you not to bring that up."

"It's just that it's so fuckin' hilarious, Kitty Kat!" He grinned at her and motioned for the bartender to give him another drink.

"I don't see why."

"I think it's 'cause you got so turned on by what you did to those people we killed that you had to give in."

"You are _such_ an ass, Bo Sinclair."

He grinned at her and returned to his drink. "What's going to happen if you get pregnant?"

"What?" she spluttered, spilling her new beer all over herself.

"I said, what's going to happen if you get pregnant? Are you going to stay out there in Ambrose, or will we need to get you an apartment here in town?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"I'd just like to know."

"That's not something I want to think about right now. Getting pregnant, I mean."

"Kitty Kat," Bo said drunkenly as he draped his heavy arm around her shoulders, "I would be proud if you push the next generation of Sinclair's out that pretty little body of yours."

Katrina began to laugh uproariously. "You're a drunken dickhead, that's what you are. Making me think you were getting all serious and shit when you're really just plastered."

Bo knocked back a shot of whiskey and pushed his chair away from the bar. "Let's go, Kitten."

Shrugging, Katrina drained her beer and followed him out the door. "I feel like having some fun," she said with a cynical smile.

"That's what I was thinkin, darlin'."

Katrina grinned and pointed her finger at a building across the street.

"Silver Crest Tattoo Parlor?" Bo asked. His lip curled into a smirk.

"I bet there's no one in there but the tattoo guy."

He took her hand and they crossed the dark road, hurrying to the entrance.


	28. Chapter 28

_**Chapter 28: **_

"Hey there," a young man said as he looked up from his magazine. "If you wanna see our albums, they're under the table over there." He pointed to the coffee table pushed against the wall.

"No need for that, sweetie," Katrina said with a grin. "I know what I want."

Bo gave Katrina an incredulous glance. "What?"

She stuck her tongue at him and pranced over to the man, raising her blue eyes to his green ones. "How much for a lower back tat?" she asked as she leaned forward on the counter, pushing her breasts up from underneath her shirt.

His eyes widened a little at the sight and he grinned, scratching his bald, tattooed head. "Well, what is it you want?"

"'Property of Vincent,' in pretty calligraphy," Katrina answered.

"Aw, so you're taken. You're a lucky guy, Vincent," the man said.

Katrina laughed. "Oh, that ain't Vincent. That's my brother, Bo. He's paying for the tattoo, it's my birthday present. So how much is it?" she asked before Bo could protest.

"I'll do it for one fifty."

"Done. So let's get to it."

"Well, I kind of need you to pay first."

"Bo, go ahead and pay the man," Katrina ordered imperiously.

He gave her a sharp look, rolled his eyes, and forked over the money.

"I'm Todd, by the way," the tattoo artist said. "That's my chair over there." He grinned at Bo. "This will be so much fun! I get to touch her _skin_! She's so hot!"

Bo glowered at the young man with narrowed eyes.

Katrina sat down, ignoring the remark, and forty five minutes later had "Property of Vincent" tattooed on her lower back in scarlet ink, along with a V and a K entwined in a lover's knot. She waited until Todd had covered the art in ointment and plastic wrap before pulling out her knife and ramming it up against the artist's throat.

"Thanks so much for the tattoo," she said with a sexy smile. "It was _fun_. But now, we're going to have some more _fun_, sweetheart! We're gonna have all kinds of _fun_!"

Bo walked over and locked the doors, put up the "Closed" sign and turned off the lights. "So you think my sister's hot, do you? You got to touch her skin . . . lucky you, asshole. But now, motherfucker, you have to die for it."

"Oh J . . . Jesus . . ." Todd mumbled as he began to shake visibly.

"Was my skin _soft_, Todd?" Katrina asked him, her breath hot against his ear as her eyes locked with Bo's. "Did you _enjoy _touchin' it?" The knife dug deeper into the young man's neck, forcing a stream of crimson to trickle down into his shirt. Katrina's slender white fingers reached up to play with the blood, rubbing it around on his chest as if she were finger painting.

"Your blood sure is warm, Todd!" she said as if she were surprised. "I wonder if it would get hotter if I let more of it out of you."

Bo laughed along with Katrina and drew his knife.

A couple of hours later, they sat next to Todd's mangled corpse as they shared a cigarette between them.

"That was fun," Katrina said, making smoke rings in the air.

"It was," Bo agreed, crushing the cigarette into the floor. "Very amusing."

"And we got four hundred dollars plus a hundred fifty dollar tattoo out of the deal."

Bo grinned at his companion and pulled himself up. "We've got to clean up a bit and then get the hell out of here," he said as he surveyed the bloodied mess around him.

Katrina pushed herself from the floor and grabbed a piece of Todd's torn shirt to wipe off the surfaces of the tattoo parlor. It was a familiar routine by now: her taking care of any fingerprints, Bo cleaning their knives and checking for hair or anything else on the corpse. They made sure no sign of them ever being there remained, down to taking the needle used to make Katrina's tattoo. After driving into the woods a ways, they washed up with some soap and water from a barrel Bo kept in the back of his truck and changed their clothes.

Bo stopped at a convenience store for some more beer before they drove back to Ambrose.


	29. Chapter 29

**C**_**hapter 29: **_

"Guess what I go-ot!" Katrina singsonged as she skipped drunkenly down to Vincent's workshop.

He turned to look at her as she stumbled in, raising his eyebrow at her state. She grinned and hiccoughed, swaying as she turned around and pulled up her shirt.

"Lookie-lookie," Katrina told him, pointing toward her lower back.

Vincent wiped his hands on a towel and obeyed. His eye widened and he stared at her with an awed look. "Kitty . . ."

"I love you, babe," she cooed, running her hands up his arms. "I'm yours always now. You better take good care of me."

Feeling overwhelmed by her drunken displays of affection, Vincent simply gathered her up in his arms and held her tightly until she relaxed and melded into him. They stood there for several long minutes, holding each other silently.

"What did you do tonight?" Vincent asked, unable to keep the tone of jealousy from his voice.

Katrina smiled and cupped her hand around the good side of his face. "My love, my wonderful Vincent, I got drunk and put your name permanently on my body. In big letters, too. You still jealous of your own brother?"

He glanced away from her, embarrassed. "I love you . . ." he said uncertainly.

She responded by leaning forward and kissing his throat, her cold, slender fingertips caressed his bare wrist under his sweater. "I love you too, Vincent."

Her hands reached slowly underneath his shirt, running up his chest lightly. Vincent moaned a little as she kissed his throat again, trailing butterfly kisses down his neck to his collarbone. He gasped as her fingers found the button of his pants and deftly removed them. Katrina dropped to her knees in front of him and smiled as she used her mouth and hands to show him just how much she loved him.

When it was over, Vincent lay back on his bed, his knees feeling weak. "My God, Kitty. I love you."

She blew a kiss over at him from her perch on the workbench and watched as he fell asleep looking at her. Katrina blew out most of the candles in the workshop and slid into the bed next to him, spooning his body with her own.

The next morning, the two made love before going to the house for breakfast. Bo was nowhere to be seen, so Katrina left a plate of eggs, toast, and sausage in the oven for him. Vincent watched her close the oven door, twinges of jealousy marring the happiness he felt over her making him breakfast. She smiled at him from underneath curly locks of hair and went to sit on his lap.

"What will you do today?" she whispered, tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

A surge of happiness flooded over him and he pulled her closer. Katrina snuggled up to his chest and laid her head on his neck, burying her face in his hair.

"I need to put those two Bo brought up in the House of Wax, and then I want to spend the rest of the day with you."

She smiled and gave him a kiss. They heard a truck drive up in front of the house, and Bo walked in moments later.

"There's food in the oven," Katrina said as she played with a lock of Vincent's hair.

"Good," was all Bo said as he grabbed some cutlery from a drawer.

Katrina turned back to Vincent. "You know what would be funny, babe?" she asked. "You could put those two you've just finished in that bedroom that's upstairs in the House of Wax. Make them like they're about to do it or something, and put someone else just inside the door like she just caught them. It'll be hilarious!"

"We can put Vera there . . ." Vincent offered, an apologetic look on his face.

She smiled at him. "I forgot about her."

He smiled back. "If you don't want to . . ."

"No, I do. I like that idea."

Vincent pulled her head down to kiss him.

"If you two are done bein' mushy, I'd like to eat," Bo said irritably.

Katrina made a face at him. Vincent picked her up as he got off the chair, swinging her into his arms. She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Let's go down to the workshop and . . ." she began to whisper into his ear, making him blush.

Bo rolled his eyes as Vincent carried her out of the kitchen.


	30. Chapter 30

_**Chapter 30:**__Fun for Lester and Kitty_

It had been several months since anyone had come into Ambrose, and the three Sinclair brothers, as well as Katrina, were starving for some excitement. Besides several rather rambunctious arguments between Katrina and Bo, nothing else had happened. Bo lounged about the house and the church, drinking beer and singing old country songs under his breath. Vincent spent hours sketching or painting Katrina as a mermaid, an angel, the Madonna, and countless other things. Katrina rearranged the living room and kitchen, dusted the House of Wax and began a flower garden that she soon abandoned any hope of growing anything out of. Finally, she began reading anything she could get her hands on.

Around noon one day, Bo and Katrina lay out on the porch, drinking lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid and soaking in the June warmth. Bo had just finished telling the girl about how he slammed a girl named Jennifer's head into her car windshield by holding on to her face while he was driving his truck. Katrina brought up the subject by asking who the previous Miss Ambrose was. Vincent came out of the house, rubbing wet hair as he had just gotten out of the shower.

"What's going on, my love?" Katrina greeted the deformed man, waving her hand in front of her face.

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her, his wet hair tickling her face as it stuck to her cheeks. "Are you hot, Kitty?"

She shook her head. "Not really. I just feel like a cat right now. All anxious and twitchy. If I had a tail, I'd be thrashin' it around this very minute. Instead, I have to settle for waving my hand."

Bo rolled his eyes at the girl's long, languid speech and let out a great belch.

"So gross, Bo-Bo!" Katrina objected.

"It's my lemonade. I can burp it up if I want."

"Don't burp like that when you're around others!" she said in an unusually snappish voice.

"I'll do what I want," he answered.

Vincent's eyebrows began to furrow at the easy way in which Katrina and Bo teased each other. The young woman read the warning signs of a jealous rage and was glad when she saw Lester's vehicle approaching.

"Any of y'all wanna come wit' me t' the bar t' pick up that licker Henry owes me?" Lester asked.

"Sure, I'll go," Katrina said, looking relieved. She hopped into Lester's truck with a smile, not even wincing at the smell.

Lester grinned back at his brothers' mirrored looks of incredulity and drove into Woodston, chatting to Katrina about stupid things like knives and bones the whole time. They picked up the cases of Crown Royal bottles and set them in the back of the truck, tying them down with twine. Lester pulled one of the bottles out and opened it once they drove out of the gravel driveway of Henry's Place.

"Here's t' you," he said, chugging some of the liquor down.

Katrina took it when it was offered to her and tossed her head back, taking a long drink. It wasn't long before the bottle was empty and the two were quite drunk. When they neared Ambrose, Katrina noticed a car on their side of the road, pulled over close to the ditch on the right. Someone was standing several yards behind the car, talking on a cell phone. Lips spreading into a wide, drunken smile, Katrina nudged Lester with her elbow.

"Speed up some and get closer to the bitch," she ordered.

Lester grinned down at her and did as she said. Katrina rolled down her window and leaned partway out of the truck, both her arms out. The girl on the cell phone saw what she was doing and stood staring in confused silence. Katrina grabbed the girl's head as Lester sped by and drug her backwards, slamming her face into the back window of the parked car.

"Shit," Lester said as he tried to catch his breath from laughing so hard.

"What?" Katrina giggled.

"There was someone else in that car."

"Wanna go back and off 'em?"

Lester shook his head slowly. "Nope. We should just go."

Katrina snickered, swaying drunkenly. "Such fun for Lester and Kitty."

Her companion began to snort with laughter before growing serious. "Bo's gonna be pissed," he informed her.

She laughed. "Oh well. I guess I'd better look innocent."

They pulled into Ambrose with sober expressions on their faces. Lester followed Katrina up to the house and into the front door. Bo was sitting on the couch watching T.V. and saw what he recognized immediately as Lester's guilty face.

"What happened?" he asked immediately.

Lester, unable to lie to his brother, told the story as Bo's face grew red. It wasn't long before Bo was shouting at Lester about how stupid they were, how they could have gotten caught, and other things before his words grew so strewn together they were incoherent.

"Oh no," Katrina mumbled as she stumbled into the living room. "We're in so much trouble." She sank into a chair, listening to Bo's tirade with her face in her hands.


	31. Chapter 31

_**Chapter 31: **_

Vincent was in his workshop, working on a small wax sculpture of his mother's that needed repainting. He heard Bo's shouts echo through the hallway connecting the Sinclair house to the House of Wax and jumped up, thinking something had happened. The sculpture shattered on the floor, but Vincent took no heed. Grabbing a couple of extra knives from a table, he hurried through the hallway to the house.

He couldn't decide if he was relieved or worried when he walked into the living room to see Katrina sitting on a chair, her head in her hands, and Lester standing beside her, looking sheepish with his head down and his hands in his pockets. Bo was pacing in front of the two, shouting something incoherent about windshields and broads and insane psycho bitches.

It seemed like hours before Bo finally ran out of things to say to his brother.

"And anyway, Lester, you mother fucker, you should have known better!" Bo finished. He glared at the man one last time before pointing towards the door. "Now get!"

The moment Lester stalked out, shamefaced, Bo rounded on Katrina.

"What the fucking hell is the matter with you, Katrina? Are you fucking stupid or just God-damned insane?"

She rolled her eyes. "Nothing's the matter with me. I just had some fun, that's all. You're the one who told me about doing it to that Jennifer girl."

"Not in front of fucking _witnesses_!" Bo wheezed, losing his breath because he was so angry. "Don't you ever fucking do that again, Kitten, or I'll wring your scrawny neck my fucking self!"

"We aren't even sure if it's a fucking person that was in the car! It may have been a dog!"

"Don't be stupid! You need to realize that what you did can't happen again!"

"You're just mad 'cause you weren't there."

"That's not why I'm fuckin' pissed off at you!"

"You know I hate it when you lie to me!"

"I'm not lying and _you fucking know it! _I'm telling you not to _ever_ do _anything_ like that again! _Do you fucking understand me, woman?_"

Vincent stared wide-eyed from one to the other, a little worried about what was going to happen. Bo looked absolutely livid, his face was red and his teeth were clenched. On the other hand, Katrina looked as cool as ice. Unless, of course, a keen observer noticed her throbbing temples and narrowed eyes.

Not knowing who was going to blow first, Vincent took a few steps away from both.

"Go fuck yourself, Bo! I don't have to listen to you or anyone else!"

"You'll stay away from Lester's if you can't behave yourself! If the cops would have been called out there . . ."

"They didn't! So what's the problem?"

"If the fuckin' authorities get wind of this place, Katrina, then we're shit out of luck, aren't we?" he shouted.

"Fuck you, Bo! Like the cops aren't going to find out about the barn sooner or later!" Her eyes widened and she glanced over at Vincent.

Bo's eyes narrowed. "Fuckin' Katrina!"

"Oh fuck you and go to hell, Bo Sinclair!" she screamed.

"God damn insane psycho bitches!" Bo shouted as he watched Katrina storm out the door. "What the fuck is up with her?" he asked Vincent angrily.

Vincent held up his hands, just as surprised at Katrina's outburst as Bo was. He walked out onto the porch, looking out over Ambrose, giving her some time to cool off before he went to her. When he finally did go down to his workshop, Katrina was sitting on the bed, her back to the wall. She glared at him as he came in and sat at his painting.

"I'm not sorry and I'm not apologizing," she insisted before turning away.

Tucking her knees under her chin, Katrina sat with her arms around her legs, gazing into a candle flame. He watched her unobtrusively . . . glancing up from behind his easel every so often . . . as she stared into the candle flame, obviously daydreaming. Vincent couldn't help but wonder what she thought of so often. He knew it was always the same thing, for she had the same dreamy expression on her face every time. Katrina no longer looked at him with that same fulfilled look and it stung. The silence between them was too overpowering for him to say anything, so he went back to painting.

They spent hours that way, her staring into the candlelight and him touching up his picture. Vincent kept glancing at her, his mind making up fictional scenarios of what she was thinking about. To his dismay, visions of his brother and his love embracing each other kept entering his brain. Visions of Katrina wanting to leave him, to go with someone complete and not deformed. Someone who could live with her in the real world, someone who wouldn't keep her secluded like a harem girl just because _he_ was afraid.

Then it came: the thing he had been dreading most.


	32. Chapter 32

_**Chapter 32:**_

"Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live away from here?" Katrina asked him. "Have your own house, a real job, things like that?"

Vincent froze, his heart running cold. _"So that's what she's been thinking of." _His thoughts turned to all the times he had went to look for her, but she had been away with Bo. He couldn't take it any more. "You want Bo, don't you? You keep thinking of a life away from here, with a normal husband and a normal life. No killing. No wax. Just peace, without me."

She stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

He glared at her as he put the mask back on. "This is what you love, isn't it? Just the artist. Not me. You want Bo in your bed."

Katrina's eyebrow rose as she scrutinized him. "I don't understand."

"You don't want me."

"Are you crazy? What's the matter with you?"

His hands gripped his hair and he began to pace the room. "You don't want me. You never did."

"Vincent, _what the fuck?_"

Vincent gripped her arms painfully. Her eyes widened in shock for a single moment before she glared at him.

"I don't know what brought this on, Vincent," Katrina said coldly, "but I suggest you shut up before something bad happens."

"You want to kill me so you can be with Bo. Both of you want to leave! You're only here because of me! Because I'm too much of a freak to face others!"

"That's not true and you know it!" she shouted, shoving him away. "What the fuck brought all this on? Do you need medication or something?"

"How dare you lie to me?"

"I'm not lying!"

"You won't leave me. I won't let you."

"If I wanted to leave, Vincent, you sure as hell wouldn't be able to stop me."

"Why did you pretend to love me? Why make me so happy just to do this?" Vincent began to pace again, squeezing his hands into fists so hard his fingernails dug into the skin. "It's because you and Bo are so alike, isn't it?"

"What do you mean, alike?" She glared at him, her eyes darkening with rage.

"Alike. You like to torture people! You take your time to kill them!"

"So what? You kill people too!"

"For art! Not just for pleasure! You and Bo, you love to kill! That's what you see in each other! That's why you and him . . . make love."

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes. Fine. Bo and I fuck all the time. We go to Lester's house, and I fuck him too. The three of us fuck each other _while we kill people! It's our fetish!_" Katrina's voice rose to a scream.

"I knew it . . ." Vincent rasped, trying to hold back the pain in his throat from speaking so much.

"That was _sarcasm _you big dumbass!"

"You're going to leave me. You and Bo. He's your lover." Vincent's eye bulged from its socket.

Katrina shook her head slowly, beginning to look a little frightened. "Vincent, I would never leave you. How can you think that?"

"Because I've seen you just gazing off into space! You spend hours doing it! You're thinking of what life would be like without me! And I know you and Bo leave for hours at a time, at least once a week, sometimes more! Where do you go? Why would you go somewhere for that long, alone, if you weren't letting him have you!" He reached back, his hurt and rage getting the most of him, and punched her in the cheekbone.

She let out a gasp . . . sent him a look of shock and pain that tore his heart in two.

"Vincent . . ." she whimpered as she fell back onto the floor.

He drew his knife, the one she had given him. "You'll never leave me," he growled in her ear.

Katrina let out a cry of rage and kneed him in the groin. She pulled herself up quickly and kicked the knife from his hand. He stood to face her, still wincing in pain.

"I'm going to _kill you_!" Vincent snarled.

"I hate you, Vincent! I hate you!" she screamed at him. "_You're_ the one that's insane! Bo might be a sadistic asshole pig, but you . . . you are _crazy!_ How can you believe, even for a second, that I don't want you? That I don't love you? Are we going to do this for the rest of our lives? Have everything going so good for a while, and then have you go nuts over nothing and act like I don't want you?"

"You _don't_ want me, I know it."

She laughed cruelly. "You're right. I don't want you. I hate you! That's what you want to hear, isn't it? So I'm telling it to you!" Katrina's lips contorted into a sneer as she thought up the worst spear and let it loose. "God, your mother sure fucked up in raising you! She was a stupid, ugly whore who didn't know how to do anything but play with wax! That's what you want, though, isn't it? You want a mommy, don't you? _Want me to help you with the mask, sweetie?_" The last was a perfect imitation of his mother.

Vincent let out a roar and lunged for her. Katrina stepped out of the way and reached back. In a flash, her hand shot through the air and slapped the deformed side of his face. Vincent's head snapped to the side painfully. His wax mask fell to the floor.

Katrina stepped back, wide eyed, and cried out as he drew a knife from his boot and pointed it at her.


	33. Chapter 33

_**Chapter 33: **_

"_What the fuck?"_

Bo took three great strides into the room and pulled Katrina out of Vincent's grasp. "What are you doing?" he shouted.

Vincent ignored him and reached out for Katrina again.

"Vincent you fucking freak, what's going on?" Bo snapped, shoving Katrina further behind him.

Vincent turned away and began to pace the room. Katrina buried her face in her hands.

"Come on," Bo said, forcing Katrina up the stairs. He drug Katrina through the House of Wax, up the driveway to the house and shut the door. "What the fuck just happened?"

Katrina sighed and slumped into a chair. "We had a fight."

"What the hell happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Bo shook his head and pulled a beer from the fridge. "Want one?"

"No. Just some water."

Bo handed her a glass of water and sat opposite her, taking a long swig of beer. "What's going on between you two? Here I am wanting to be a nice guy and apologize to you and you're down there getting yourself killed!"

"I'm not sure. It was all one big explosion. I said some things, and then he accused me of wanting to screw you." Katrina massaged her temples with a long sigh. "I told him that I would never screw you . . . not that there's something wrong with you or anything, you know."

"Of course _I'd_ screw _you_ anytime," Bo said, earning himself a glare from Katrina. "You're drop dead gorgeous, Kat. But I'm not a one-girl kind of guy, and I know you wouldn't deal with that shit."

She laughed. "Nope. I'd chop your balls off and feed them to you."

"Don't I fuckin' know it?" He laughed along with her. "But seriously, Kat, there's something I want to tell you." Bo leaned back in his chair, looking at her seriously. "I talk a lot of shit to my brother, because he's my brother. If he were normal, I'd do the same. It's just the way I am. You know you love it." He chuckled. "Any fuckin' way, the truth of the matter is that Vince loves you. And it's not just regular love. He's fucking ob-fuckin'-sessed. And I'm not gonna mess with you . . . for that reason. You're his."

Katrina sighed and drank some more of her water. "I know he loves me. I love him too, Bo."

"Then why are you two havin' this blowout?"

She shrugged. "I'm pretty damn sure it's my fault."

Bo guzzled the rest of his beer and tossed the bottle out the window. "He thinks you're gonna leave, I bet."

"Why would he think that?"

"Because you're fightin'. The great ass doesn't realize people fight once in a while. Makes things interesting, in my opinion."

"How the bloody hell would you know that?"

"I've had my share of women, darlin'. I just gave up on the whole girlfriend thing when I was a teenager. Like I said before, I'm not a one-woman kind of guy. Girls don't like that."

"What should I do? He won't talk to me, and he's all violent about it. Vince'd probably turn me into a wax doll just to keep me around."

"That's what he was going to do, Kitty Kat. I know it. It's why I stopped his stupid ass." Bo leaned forward. "If you _were_ going to leave, darlin', or if you'd done somethin' fucked up, I'd have let him do it. But I know you. And you're not like that. This shit is just a big fucking misunderstanding."

"I wouldn't expect any less from you, Bo," Katrina said with a wry grin. "You do love your brother even if you act like a damn asshole when it comes to him."

"Don't you dare tell him a word I've said!" Bo said threateningly.

She laughed at him. "Of course not."

"You need to talk to him, Kitty Kat."

"I know. But how? If I come near him, he'll kill me."

"You need to explain why you did what you did. In fact, I'd like to know _what _you did."

Katrina sighed and began fingering her belly ring. "I'm . . . overemotional right now. Too many hormones." She went on to explain what had happened.

"PMS, or whatever that shit is that makes women crazier than hell?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm not riding the crimson wave."

"Well then what the fuck is it?"

She was silent for a long minute. "It's . . . I'm pregnant, Bo."

He stared. "You're fucking shitting me!"

"No, it has been two months since . . . well, you know."

Bo jumped up and yanked her out of her chair to give her a great bear hug. "So I'm gonna be an uncle?"

"Yep. Unless I'm going through menopause early."

"Well no wonder you've been a bit difficult to live with. I take it the bastard doesn't know yet, does he?"

"No. I haven't told him."

"Come on, Kitten, we've got to go tell him. That'll sort out all this."

She pulled back. "No. I'm afraid."

"Of Vincent? Once he knows . . ."

"No," Katrina whispered, tugging on his arm. "I'm . . . I'm afraid of popping it out."

"Oh." Bo stopped in his tracks, remembering what his parents had told him of his and Vincent's perilous birth. His mother had had a Caesarean section because she couldn't birth the twins normally. Even though his father was a doctor and had known exactly what to do, his mother had almost died.

"We'll have to talk to Vincent and Lester about that. Something will have to be done. I think you'd be better off having it in a hospital."

She nodded in agreement. "But how can I do that?"

"Like I said, we'll figure something out. Now let's go talk to Vince."


	34. Chapter 34

_**Chapter 34:**__Do You Love Me?_

Vincent was sitting in a corner of his workroom, sorting through wax pebbles. Katrina's words were still ringing through his ears. He wiped away a tear angrily as he pulled up a new handful of pebbles. He picked out the cleanest, whitest pebbles of wax and put them into a bucket beside his chair. _"Only the best wax will do for her,"_ he thought. Vincent glanced up as the trap door to his workroom creaked open and shadowy figures made their way down the stairs.

"Hold my hand darlin'," he heard Bo say. "I don't want you to slip."

"I don't need to be put on a pedestal," Katrina retorted.

Vincent choked back a sob. So it was true. They were . . . intimate. He stood up, picking up his knife from the table beside him. He would kill her. Not Bo, for who could resist such beauty? It was all her fault . . .

The two stepped out into the candlelight. Katrina was holding onto Bo's arm. She saw the knife in Vincent's hand and anger rose within her.

"So you're just going to kill me, are you?" she asked.

Vincent nodded and pointed towards her arm, still linked with Bo's.

"You must not think too much of me if you think I'd screw your woman, you fucking freak," Bo snapped.

Vincent growled and stepped forward.

"Bo, please leave us alone," Katrina sighed.

He glanced at her warily. "Are you sure? I don't want this nut hurting you."

She nodded.

"You'd better listen to her before you act like a God damned fool," Bo cautioned Vincent.

Katrina waited until Bo had gone upstairs before she took a step towards Vincent. "Will you put that down and come here?" she asked.

He hesitated for a moment before setting down the knife and walking over to her. _"I can always strangle her,"_ he thought. When he saw the purple bruise across her cheek, he felt some sorrow. It was quickly wiped away when he remembered what she had done.

She looked up at him, trying her hardest to calm herself down as she knew she was in danger. "Vincent," Katrina began, "I'm so sorry. For what I did, and the things I said."

Vincent shook his head. "Too late."

"I love you so much," she continued. "It wasn't my fault . . . well, it was, but . . ."

His arms snaked out, wanting to touch her one last time . . . he ran his fingers up along her bare shoulders and come to rest around her neck. She shivered as he traced her collarbone with his thumbs, knowing what he was readying himself to do.

"Vincent, do you love me? I mean really, really love me. Not just lust, or because of some stupid shit about me being the only girl who wanted you and all that."

He stared at her, wondering if it was a joke.

"Well, do you?" she asked again.

Vincent closed his eye, trying to stifle the rage and pain he felt. "I love you, Katrina."

"I love you too, Vincent. More than anything."

His eye opened. "Then why . . ."

She began to laugh mirthlessly. "Because I'm stupid, Vincent. Very stupid. But there's another reason I'm being so weird." Her hand went up to his and pulled it down to her stomach. "Vincent, we're going to have a baby."

"What?" His expression was so comical she had to laugh.

"A baby, Vincent. I'm pregnant."

His other hand dropped from her neck to touch her abdomen. "A baby? Our baby?"

Katrina nodded at him. "Yes. Our baby. It's why I've been so . . . hormonal." She threw her hands around his neck. "I'm so, so sorry. I love you so much, I can't believe . . ."

He put a finger on her lips. "A baby? Really?"

Laughing, she nodded again.

"Kitty . . ." he whispered before kissing her.

She kissed him back before pulling away and mock punching him. "You were going to make me wax just so I'd still be here? What were you going to do, leave the crotch open so you could screw me?"

Vincent's brow furrowed in anger before he realized she was joking. "No," he said seriously. "I was going to put you down here, so I could always look at you."

Katrina rolled her eyes and punched him again. She walked over to the wax he had been snorting and let out a huff. "I don't know if I should be honored that you were going to all this trouble."

"I'm sorry . . ." he repeated.

She laughed. "I'll stop now. I don't know why I'm angry with you . . . if you were going to leave me, _I'd_ kill _you_."

He chuckled. "I would never, ever leave you. I need you too much."

"Well I need you too, you great prat."

"What is a prat?"

"An English word for big, stupid idiot. I've been reading too much Harry Potter."

He smiled at her and kissed her again. "Let's go to bed. You need your sleep now. Lots of it, to help the baby grow." Vincent was sure he remembered reading something like that in his father's medical texts.

Katrina took his arm and pulled him over to the bed, her mind on more than just sleeping.


	35. Chapter 35

_**Chapter 35: **__Plans_

The next morning, Vincent slid out of his bed in the Sinclair house, careful not to wake Katrina. He went downstairs and poured himself some cereal before sitting down at the kitchen table to think.

"_I'm going to be a father. Me. A father."_

"Well if it isn't the daddy-to-be," his brother said as he walked into the room, stretching his arms above his head.

Vincent looked up with a sheepish grin. Bo began to laugh.

"I never thought I'd see you look like that. Hell, I never thought I'd be tellin' you congratulations on havin' a kid, either."

"It seems so surreal."

"Sur-whatever or not, there's a problem with this. How's the girl gonna have the baby? She's scared shitless about havin' it here."

"What can we do?" Vincent asked worriedly.

"I've been thinkin' about that. There's a lot of shit that _could_ be done, but none that are safe enough."

"Like what?"

"She could get state medical aid so she can get the doctor and hospital shit free. But that'd involve her givin' her information to the State of Louisiana, and that wouldn't work."

"Why?"

"She's underage. That's a problem. They'd want to know about her family and all that shit. And even if we said she's eighteen, they'd want social security numbers and identification and an address."

Vincent began chewing on his lip, staring down at his cereal with a fearful expression.

"Wait a minute," Bo said thoughtfully, "what about a midwife?"

"Dad always said they're crocks."

"It's better than nothin', isn't it? That way Kitten could pop it out here at the house, and we can just kill the midwife afterwards."

"But what about money? Would we be able to pay a midwife? Won't she ask for the money up front?"

Bo's grin faded. "That's right. But we can still look into it. Maybe the bitch'll take payments or something."

Vincent nodded in agreement. "It's worth a try."

"If worst comes to worst, when Kitten goes into labor, I'll just take her to the emergency room. I don't think they can turn her away if she can't pay. I can make up some bullshit on the paperwork. I'll say we forgot our I.D.'s at home."

"Won't they want to keep her in the hospital for a while?" Vincent asked. "They'll expect you to bring them in sooner or later."

Bo sighed. "I forgot. Fuck!"

"Maybe Katrina has an idea."

"I think she would have said something if she did. She's probably known from the first she was pregnant. I bet all she's been thinkin' of is tryin' to figure out a way to deliver the kid safely."

"I can't let anything happen to her."

"I know," Bo answered, his tone echoing with worry.

Vincent looked at him with surprise. Bo usually never showed any emotions, much less admit he was worried about someone's welfare.

"It's my nephew you're talkin' about!" Bo said angrily. "The next generation of Sinclair's! Do you think I don't care about that? Or Katrina? Shit, Vincent, I actually love the bitch!" He grinned at the jealousy that flashed in Vincent's eye. "You fuckin' freak. I mean like a sister. She's grown on me. Never met another girl like her in my entire life. You're fucking lucky, Vincent."

An uncomfortable moment passed between the men, neither of them used to discussing love or women or anything else intimate.

"You're gonna have to marry her, you know," Bo told his brother as he lit a cigarette, desperate to break his discomfort. "I'll do the ceremony."

"But you're not a priest."

"No, but who needs one that's ordained? I'll just do the Wedding Mass out of that old missal. Everything's already written there that we'll need to say and do."

Vincent chewed his lower lip. "I don't know."

"Just do it," Bo said irritably, already making plans in his head. "Ask her tonight. We'll do the wedding when she gets a dress."

"Why's it so important that we do this?"

Bo took a long drag of his cigarette and shrugged. "So your kid's not a bastard. And it'll make Kitten happy. You'll see. Girls love all the wedding shit."

"But it won't be real."

"To her, it will be. I'm sure you have rings and shit somewhere in that lair of yours. Go find some."

"But . . ."

"Just go fucking do it, Vincent!"


	36. Chapter 36

_**Chapter 36: **__My Gift To You_

After sorting through boxes of jewelry, Vincent had finally found a wedding ring for himself and Katrina, as well as an engagement ring. They didn't "match," nor were they necessarily "wedding" rings, but he was more intent on finding just the _right_ one for each of them. The ones that spoke to their personalities.

He had picked an old-fashioned gold ring with a round ebony stone for himself. It reminded him of one his part-Italian father had inherited from his maternal grandfather. Katrina's engagement ring was a square-cut ruby stone set in a thick silver ring engraved with lilies. Her wedding ring was a thin band of titanium with three tiny diamonds set in the middle.

But something just didn't feel right. Vincent felt as if he needed something to give her that was more personal, something not stolen. Pacing his workshop fretfully, Vincent wondered what he should do. And then the idea came to him. He picked up the engagement ring and smiled, walking over to his barrel full of wax pellets.

Hours later, he walked up to the Sinclair porch to see Katrina and Bo sitting out in the night air. Bo was dozing, while Katrina read with the light of a few candles. She smiled at Vincent as he approached and stood to kiss him.

"You look funny," she said. "What's the matter?"

He felt a cold sweat cover his body and he realized that he didn't have the courage to do as Bo had ordered. Vincent dropped his gaze to the floor as he dropped into a chair beside Katrina.

"Do you want some water or something?" Katrina asked, looking concerned.

"No, Kitty. I'm just tired."

"It's no wonder," she yawned, "you were gone all afternoon."

She said it with a hint of reproach in her tone which made Vincent even more nervous.

"What did you do?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

"Read the last Harry Potter book. It's really good. Oh, and I learned a new word."

"What?"

"Wanker. It means asshole or something like that."

"Oh."

Bo sputtered in his sleep, shocking Vincent. The deformed man chewed on his bottom lip, keeping his eye on his brother. _"I can't do it . . ."_

"I wish you'd tell me what's wrong, my love. You can't lie to me," Katrina insisted.

"I . . . I . . ."

"Just tell me, silly," she whispered, poking him gently in the ribs. "It's nothing bad, is it?"

He shook his head.

"Well then?"

"Come with me," he whispered in her ear, pulling her into the house and up to their bedroom. Vincent closed the door behind them quietly and turned to face her, taking a deep breath. He looked down into her love-filled ocean blue orbs and was glad to feel his hesitation recede.

"This is for you, Kitty," Vincent said, pressing a small box into her hand.

She took it with a smile, brushing her hair from her face. Her fingers deftly unknotted the string and popped open the lid. "Vincent . . ." she breathed, lifting up a thin silver chain. Katrina blinked slowly, staring at the pendant hanging from it.

Vincent had carefully fashioned a tiny, flat lily out of wax. He painted the blossom black, with a green stem. It was set into two thin pieces of glass, with a tiny wax V and K on either side of the flower. It was the size of a quarter, and the chain was long enough for the pendant to hang perfectly between Katrina's breasts.

"This is so beautiful," Katrina whispered, tiptoeing up to kiss him. She smiled and snuggled up against him. "I love it."

"It reminded me of you. A lily, as beautiful as you are, but black. Unique. Different from all the rest. Black for your hair, for your favorite color, for the sky the night I met you."

Katrina looked up with tears in her eyes. "You're making me feel all squishy," she whispered with a light little laugh, feeling embarrassed by his words. "You say such pretty things to me, things I don't deserve."

He smiled down at her and rubbed her cheeks with his thumbs. "I'm only telling you how I feel."

She smiled and buried her head in his chest. Vincent's arms surrounded her and crushed her body to his. Katrina let out a little breathy sigh.

"I'm not hurting the baby, am I?" he asked into her hair.

"No, babe," she whispered.

"There's something I want to ask you, Katrina."

She pulled away from him and smiled, although her eyes looked wary. "Ask me anything."

Vincent slid to his knees and embraced her belly. "I want . . . if _you_ want to . . ." He turned red and began to stammer.

"What do you want?" she asked with a little laugh.

He pulled the ruby ring out of his pocket and showed it to her. "I want you to marry me. Will you, Katrina?"

For a moment, he thought she was angry. The color drained from her face and she stared down at the ring with wide eyes. Then she turned a bright pink and tears trickled down her cheeks.

"Oh Vincent . . . I . . . I would _love_ to be your wife!" Katrina's arms came around him and she knocked him backwards with the force of her hug.


	37. Chapter 37

_**Chapter 37: **__Wedding_

Katrina did not go overboard on her "wedding" as Bo had predicted. Instead, she was perfectly happy getting married at the Ambrose church in her own clothes. It was Bo who insisted on taking her to Silverton to buy a proper dress and veil. She chose a simple white satin strapless ball gown with lace on the bodice that was on the clearance rack and a small tiara with an elbow length gauze veil. Together, dress and veil cost Bo a total of one hundred twenty two dollars. They also stopped at a grocery store on the way back, to buy a bouquet of red roses and a little white cake.

When they got back to Ambrose, Katrina ran up to her room to get ready while Bo and Lester went to the church to prepare for the ceremony.

"I cain't believe Vince's getting' married," Lester told his older brother with a smirk as they divested Father Carl of his robes.

"Me neither, Les. But we need new Sinclair's running around here, and I ain't the type t' keep a woman 'round permanently. Not one I was fuckin', anyway. And it ain't like you're getting' married _anytime_ soon."

"Hey now," Lester frowned, "I had myself a girlfriend once."

Bo laughed. "Yeah, that Hetty sure was an ugly little thing," he said, remembering the girl Lester had dated in seventh grade. "That fucked up bowl haircut and those nasty ass pimples. Ugh." He shuddered, grinning wickedly at Lester.

"Fuck yew, Bo."

Grabbing the robes from Lester's hands, Bo opened his mouth to retort but his gaze caught sight of Vincent skulking in the corner beside the door.

"Well?" Bo asked, "Get your ass in here, Vincent!"

Vincent sighed uncomfortably and came into the light, wearing one of his father's dark grey suits. It fit the deformed man perfectly, showing off his muscular figure while looking sophisticated. He had even combed his hair and tied it back into a neat ponytail . . . but his mask was on.

Bo shook his head at the sight and grabbed a missal from underneath the altar. "Go get Kitty Kat, Lester," he ordered. "It's time."

It wasn't long before Lester knocked on the door of the church, the signal to start the wedding march. The song rang eerily from the cassette player, a recording of someone's wedding from the early fifties, played by an elder's wife on an organ. Vincent shuddered a bit when he heard it, remembering that the woman in question now opened and shut her curtains twenty-four hours a day up on the main street of Ambrose.

Then Katrina walked in and all his thoughts turned towards her.

She had left her hair down and loose, in the natural curls that he loved so much. The veil draped prettily over the tiara, covering her black tresses in a frost of white. Her creamy shoulders and arms emerged sexily from the strapless bodice, also covered by the gauze of her veil, reminding him of a tantalizing gift waiting to be opened. Katrina had applied only a little makeup: lip gloss, mascara, and blush . . . enhancing her pretty face without looking fake.

After both genuflected, Lester led Katrina down the aisle, walking clumsily along to the music. He stopped when he reached his mother's coffin . . . closed and covered with a cloth to serve as a makeshift altar . . . and kissed Katrina's hand before taking a seat in one of the pews. Vincent held out his hand to his beloved and she smiled at him, taking his fingers in her own. He led her up to the prie dieu set by Bo's feet and the two crossed themselves and knelt.

"Vincent and Katrina, you have come to this church to seal and strengthen your love in the presence of God and the Church. Have you come freely and without reservation to give yourselves in marriage?"

"I have," Vincent said.

"I have," Katrina whispered.

"Will you love and honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?"

"I will," the two said together.

"Clasp your hands," Bo ordered, watching as his brother and Katrina did as he said. "Now Vincent repeat after me. Vincent Raphael Sinclair, do you take Katrina Adelaide Roseau to be your wife? Do you promise to love her in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, to love and honor all the days of your life?"

"I do," Vincent said soberly.

Bo repeated the vows for Katrina.

"Of course I do, and more," she whispered with a smile.

"You have declared your consent before God and the Church," Bo read, spreading his arms wide. "May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. 'What God hath put together, let no man tear asunder.'"

"Amen," said Lester.

"Amen," Vincent and Katrina repeated.

"The rings, Lester."

Lester handed Bo the rings Vincent had picked out. Bo held them above his head as he pronounced a benediction.

"Bless these rings which I bless in Your name. Grant those who wear them faith in each other, peace in each other, and eternal love. Amen."

Vincent took Katrina's ring from his brother and pushed it onto her finger. "With this ring, I thee wed."

She took his ring from Bo and did the same. "With this ring, I thee wed."

"Repeat after me," Bo said. "Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor. Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur. Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum. Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero."

Vincent and Katrina stood before repeating the Latin vows. She placed her bouquet of roses on the altar before Bo began the final prayer.

"Lord, accept our offering for this newly wed couple Vincent and Katrina. By your love and providence you have brought them together. Now bless them all the days of their married life. We ask this through Christ our Lord."

"Amen," they all whispered.

"You may kiss the bride."

Vincent lifted the veil and kissed Katrina's sweet, smiling face.

Thus was it done. They were married.

_Translation of Latin rite: The love of Christ has gathered us together into one. Let us rejoice and be glad in him. Let us fear the living God. And love each other from the depths of our hearts._


	38. Chapter 38

_**Chapter 38: **__Pregnant Bitches Are Insane_

It had been several months since their wedding, and Vincent and Katrina had settled into a pleasant home-oriented routine that included both Bo and Lester. Vincent stayed up late working on various art projects, so he slept in later the next day. Katrina was happy he did, because she liked waking up first. She liked to shower and take her time getting ready, making sure she would look good for her new husband. It was almost a fanatical obsession with her to make sure she looked perfect, regarding the weight she was putting on as enhancing her too-skinny frame.

After Katrina got ready, she would go downstairs and cook an enormous breakfast. She cooked only to satisfy her pregnancy craving for tons of food, but the men of the family believed it was solely for their benefit. And as the months wore on . . . as most men are for good cooks whose food can be like a drug . . . the Sinclair brothers began to see the girl as a domestic goddess. The entire family ate breakfast together, no matter who had to do what that day.

Usually, Lester slipped in from his road-cleaning job to take a shower so he could join them for breakfast. Katrina refused to let him eat otherwise. When he was done, she handed him a lunchbag and sent him back to work. Bo, on the other hand, woke up only when Katrina called him and Vincent to eat. He dawdled long after Lester's departure, setting forth to do what she called his "town chores" only when the sun was high in the sky. Vincent went with his brother, as their main focus at the moment was to clean out all the stores in the town. Katrina insisted that the place be made ready for a curious child. And for once, all the brothers had agreed with her.

The deal was made that they tackle the town while she cleaned the house. So every day after the breakfast dishes were done, Katrina began to make the Sinclair home into a model of domesticity. At first, Bo and Vincent insisted she take it easy, but once they saw how her pregnancy hormones turned her into a raging cleaning machine, they left her alone.

"Pregnant bitches are insane," Bo told his brother when he saw that Katrina had not only tidied and straightened the living room, but had washed the drapes, scrubbed the floor, and created an elaborate set of sofa covers out of his mother's most expensive navy blue blankets.

Around lunchtime, everyone ate whatever was at hand. Afterward, Bo would sit in front of the television with a beer, while Katrina and Vincent retired upstairs. It was the favorite part of their day, to close their curtains and lock the door so they could make love all afternoon. Not coming down until evening, when Lester came by to drop off a pint of Katrina's favorite chocolate ice cream and relax with some alcohol in the living room while she made dinner.

Bo and Lester ate in front of the television. Katrina and Vincent ate in the kitchen. He would clean up for her, insist she watch T.V. with his brothers. And like clockwork, around nine each night, Katrina would fall asleep on the couch and Vincent would carry her to bed.

Vincent reveled in the comforting repetitiveness of their routine. It reminded him of the schedule his mother kept him on as a child. Katrina, on the other hand, was growing more and more nervous about having the baby. The routine was what kept her going each day, keeping her from having to think about what needed to be done.

One afternoon, Katrina's fear and anxiety grew too much for her and she decided to do the only thing she could. She slipped out of the house quietly and made her way to the church. After making sure neither Bo nor Vincent were hanging around, Katrina opened the old, creaking church doors and walked in. She genuflected by habit, still schooled to rigid perfection after years of her father forcing her to attend Mass.

For a moment she stood, staring at the casket of the grandmother of her baby, her hand over her swelling belly. Katrina didn't notice that it was Bo, and not a wax figure, that sat in the front row closest to the casket. He remained frozen in place, his back to her, as she knelt onto the prie dieu underneath the statue of the Virgin Mary in the corner.

Her low, sweet voice echoed through the small church, just barely audible through the noise of the recorded sermon. Bo chanced a look at her and watched in surprise as Katrina prayed to the Blessed Virgin to have a safe pregnancy and childbirth, to have a healthy baby and to be a good mother. She was praying so earnestly, Bo couldn't bring himself to move. He turned slowly back to face the casket and hoped Katrina wouldn't walk up to look at Trudy Sinclair's remains.

"_Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee."_

Bo listened to the young woman's pleading words, remembering back to when his mother had prayed with such desperation to save his soul.

"_Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."_

"_Mothers,"_ he thought, _"they're all the same when it comes to prayin'."_

"_Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen."_

Katrina recited an entire rosary before adding additional private prayers, her lips moving constantly as she pleaded for help from the unseen.

"Blessed Mother, keep us all safe from harm. Whether we sin in your eyes or not, I am bringing a child into this world, and I want to raise it right. Protect my brothers, Bo and Lester, and keep Vincent's love for me steady."

Bo shifted uncomfortably, feeling as if he were invading a private moment, like he had walked in on her making love to Vincent. The low, pleading words made him feel sorry for Katrina, and pity wasn't something he liked tugging at his heartstrings, as black as they were. The feeling made him want to comfort her, or at the very least go buy her something. Fingers itching for a smoke, Bo forced himself to wait until he heard Katrina leave before pulling a cigarette from his pocket.

"God damn pregnant insane bitches," Bo said with a scowl.

_A/N: All right, this was the final chapter before Carly and Co. come to Ambrose. I estimate there to be about seven more chapters before this story ends . . . so enjoy! -Scythe_


	39. Chapter 39

_**Chapter 39: **__Beginning of the End_

Katrina sat on the porch late one afternoon with her feet propped up on a crate as she devoured a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Brownie ice cream and scanned a fashion magazine Lester had brought for her the day before. She was waiting for the men to get back from helping Lester build a shed for smoking venison . . . the road-cleaner thought he could make extra cash selling deer jerky in the surrounding towns. Vincent hadn't wanted to go, but Katrina had insisted. He was getting so protective of her that she almost felt smothered.

Like the day before, when he told her she shouldn't walk up and down the stairs . . . his reason being that she could slip and fall. When Katrina had exasperatedly tried to explain that she _would _need to go upstairs sometime, like to sleep, for instance, Vincent had insisted that someone would carry her. This caused Katrina to sink down into the couch, covering her face and sighing loudly, and Bo to laugh so hard he almost wet himself.

"Jesus Christ, Vincent," Bo told his brother on that occasion, "do you want me to go find her a plastic bubble to live in for the rest of her life?"

The contemplative look on Vincent's face caused even more uproarious laughter.

Katrina giggled at the memory and sat her empty ice cream carton beside her chair as Bo's truck pulled into the driveway.

"Did you get finished?" she asked Vincent after Bo went upstairs to shower.

He nodded, looking exhausted.

"Want me to get you anything?"

"No, Kitty," Vincent said with a tired smile. "Just sit here with me."

They sat in the fading light, holding hands and watching the sun set in silence.

"Your turn," Bo mumbled to Vincent as he stepped back outside, running his hand through his wet hair. He cracked open a beer and sat down with a long sigh. "I'm fucking _tired_!"

"It's so cute when you actually go out and do real work," Katrina teased, exchanging a smile with Vincent.

"Shut up, Kitten. I'm too tired to deal with you."

"I'll go shower now," Vincent said, getting up to go in the house.

"Want some help?" Katrina asked.

He blushed a little and shook his head. "I smell too bad, Kitty."

"Well the point was for me to wash you . . ."

"Fucking hell you two, I don't need this in my mind!" Bo shouted.

Katrina laughed. Vincent turned beet red and hurried into the house.

"So have you guys figured out where I'm having this kid yet?" Katrina asked after a few moments had passed.

Bo chewed on his bottom lip for a while before answering. "I'm thinkin' the best thing to do is just go to the emergency room when you're in labor," he answered slowly. "You've gone this far just fine. Lester thinks I should pretend to be your guardian . . . you know, like an older brother or something . . . and make up some shit about not having I.D.'s because of a fire. We'll make something up. Once you have the kid, it's not like they can keep you in the hospital, can they?"

She shrugged. "They might try and keep the baby, though."

"We'll deal with that later. The important thing is to make sure it and you are safe."

"Thanks."

"No problem, Kitten."

They sat in companionable silence, watching the stars twinkle in the sky. Vincent joined them when he was finished with his shower, coming to sit beside his wife, who was thumbing through her magazine once more. Suddenly, there were lights down in the town and all three craned their necks to see who was coming.

"What's Les doing here so late?" Katrina wondered.

Lester pulled up into the driveway and leaned out his window. "There's some kids campin' out in that meadow by th' animal pit," he announced.

"How many?" Bo asked, his eyes glinting with pleasure.

"Don't know for sure . . . there's two cars, though."

Katrina sighed and leaned back in her chair. "This is _so_ not fair. You guys get to have all the fun."

"Shut it, Kitten," Bo ordered as he stood up. "You'll get your fun again soon. Just three more months to go."

She stuck her tongue out at him and turned her attention to her husband. "Are you going too?"

"Do you want me to stay?" Vincent asked, leaning in close for a kiss.

She smiled at him as he stroked her arm. "I'm sure we can find something to keep you from being bored."

"That's my fuckin' cue to get the hell outta here," Bo said, grabbing the keys to his truck. "I'll rough 'em up a little bit, and we'll see where it goes from there."

"Have fun," Katrina told him.

He wasn't gone long, much to the couple's chagrin.

"Mother fucking teenagers broke my fuckin' light!" Bo shouted, banging the front door of the house.

Katrina and Vincent trudged down the stairs . . . Katrina wearing only a robe . . . to see what all the fuss was about.

"What the hell happened?" she asked irritably.

"Fuckin' kid threw a beer bottle at my headlight and broke it. I'm gonna _fuck him up_!"

Katrina rolled her eyes.

"We're going back out there," Bo continued, "so I can mess with their cars."

"What are you going to do, slash their tires?" Katrina teased. "That's what kids these days do when they're pissed at someone."

"Come on, Vincent," Bo ordered, ignoring her.

"Does he have to go?"

"Of course he does!"

Katrina sighed. "I guess I'll go to sleep then," she announced. "Goodnight, boys." She kissed Vincent before Bo shoved him out the door.


	40. Chapter 40

_**Chapter 40: **__Like Holbein _

The next afternoon, as was his daily custom, Bo knelt on a prie dieu in front of his mother's casket, staring at the woman he had both loved and hated.

"I know I deserved your punishments, Mama, but see, they didn't help, did they?" he whispered, his hands folded as if he was at prayer. "All the Hail Mary's you and Father Carl forced me to say, all the Acts of Contrition, all the rosaries . . . they were for nothing. Now you and the Father are wax. You can do nothing more to me."

Memories of Trudy Sinclair's white palm flying at his face rushed through Bo's mind and he grinned. "Oh Mama, you taught me what torture was when I was just a little boy, didn't you? You taught me how to create scars, how to inflict pain, how to crawl into someone's mind and torture their soul. I wonder if you can see me from Hell, Mama. Can you? Are you proud of your son now? Am I still a monster, or only the product of what you created?"

The church door opened and Bo turned, expecting to see Katrina coming to pray again. But it wasn't Katrina. It was two of the teenagers from the camp. He watched, trying not to smirk, as they mouthed their apologies and closed the door.

Katrina stood on the porch of the Sinclair house, watching as the girl and boy hurried out of the church. She smiled, wondering what Bo would do, when she noticed they had seen her. The girl tapped the boy on the shoulder and pointed. They had just started walking towards the house when Bo came out of the church. The two turned to talk to him and while they did, Katrina took the opportunity to go back inside. She watched from an upstairs window as they made their way up the street to the House of Wax. Grinning, she went to the tunnel inside the house that led to Vincent's workshop.

She could hear an opera being played on Vincent's old radio. It was a beautiful song, and Katrina began humming the tune as she walked in. Vincent was at his easel in the corner, touching up one of his oil paintings. Katrina began to dance the moment he looked up and saw her, making him smile as she twirled over to him. The pale blue maternity dress spun out around her, and she giggled like a child.

"Do you know how beautiful you are?" Vincent asked.

She collapsed into his lap. "No. But this is beautiful," she said, pointing at the picture. It was of her, the night she had stood in front of the House of Wax, staring at the moonlight in her tear.

"Silly. It's of you."

"I know. But you've perfected everything. I don't really look like that."

"Yes, you do."

"No. You artists are all alike. You're like Holbein, you know, that guy who painted the picture of Anne of Cleves for Henry the Eighth. He made her all pretty, but when she got to England she was ugly and fat, or something like that anyway."

Vincent chuckled. "Maybe that's true, but you're no fat Anne of Cleves." He kissed her softly. "You're spending too much time reading."

They heard footsteps and voices overhead.

"Oh yeah, that's why I came over," Katrina said. "Some of those people are here. A boy and a girl . . . late teens or early twenties is my guess. Just the two."

Vincent nodded, reluctantly releasing her. "I'd better go prepare, then." He patted her on the bottom. "Why don't you go take a nap?"

She smiled. "How'd you know what I was thinking?"

"Because I love you."

"I love you, too," she told him. "I'll see you later."

Katrina yawned loudly and went back to the house, where she fell straight into bed and fell asleep.

It was early evening when she was awakened by a male shouting in pain downstairs. She grinned and got up, going down to see what the commotion was all about. Katrina glanced out the living room window to see the girl from before standing outside Bo's truck, talking on a cellular phone.

"I'm about to take care of the girl," Bo said as he strode into the room with a fan belt in one hand and a green basket of car parts in the other. He took his trucker's hat from the table and pulled it onto his head. "Vincent's doin' the boy right now."

Katrina laughed. "You make it seem like he's screwing him."

Bo rolled his eyes. "Get on upstairs and lie down, Kitty Kat. I don't want you running around here until all this is taken care of."

"I'm pregnant, not an invalid," she snapped.

He shook his head. "You're carrying the next generation of Sinclair's in that fat stomach of yours, Kitten. You ain't doin' shit until that kid's out of you."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Fine. I'm going to go lie down, yet again. But I'm doing it down in the workshop with Vincent."

Bo pulled her close and kissed her on the forehead. "Fine, yourself. Now _get_."

He marched out, slamming the door behind him. Katrina touched the spot he had kissed, a strange foreboding feeling welling up inside her.

She took a deep breath and went into the old study, heading for the trapdoor that led to the workshop. Grimacing as she stepped in fresh blood, Katrina plodded along down the underground corridor, stopping just before she entered Vincent's lair. She could hear his victim moaning loudly, the sound echoing through the room.

"Babe?" Katrina asked as she walked in.

Vincent turned and smiled at her. "Kitty."

She walked over to him, kissing him deeply before examining the man on the table. He looked at her with a mixture of pain, terror, and pleading. A single tear rolled down his cheek. She turned away quickly, not wanting to stare at the handsome man too long lest Vincent get jealous.

Katrina sighed and sat down on the bed, rubbing her swollen ankles idly as she watched Vincent wax the man's face. "You'll need to do my eyebrows again pretty soon," she said, finding a more comfortable position for herself.

"Um-hm," Vincent murmured, too engrossed in his work to pay attention to her.

She shook her head with a smile, knowing how much he loved his work, and decided to lie down. Tucking the blanket around herself neatly, Katrina watched as Vincent heaved the man up to put him in the wax shower. She yawned as the humming of the liquid wax raced through the pipes and began to spray the victim.

When she woke up, Vincent was gone.


	41. Chapter 41

_**Chapter 41:**__Mop Up Blood While Makin' Love _

Katrina sat up, stretching her arms high, and cursed the fact that she needed so much rest. She stood up, intending on going to find Vincent to see where he had put the new figure, and walked over to the stairs. She screamed in fright as a young man with dark hair and blue eyes fell in a heap at her feet.

"Help me!" the boy cried, clawing at her feet.

"Get back, Kitty," she heard Vincent say. His boots came thumping down the stairs. One of them shoved the boy down to the floor.

"No. No, no, no . . ." the boy cried just before Vincent slammed his dragon knives into his neck.

"Eew!" Katrina cried, watching the boy's head roll away from his body. "Couldn't you have done that a bit cleaner? Now look at all this blood I'll have to mop up."

Vincent bent over and kissed her deeply. "I'll do it. You rest." His hand traveled down to her abdomen, touching it gently.

She smiled and embraced him. "If I rest any more, there's going to be an imprint of my fat ass in every bed in Ambrose."

"Resting is good for the baby," he told her.

Katrina grinned and wrapped her fingers into his hair. "So is making the pregnant mama happy."

"How can I do that?" The smile on Vincent's face showed that he knew exactly how.

She tugged on a lock of his hair. "Surprise me."

His mouth came down on hers and he pulled her close. She moaned as his lips traveled down her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin in the place she liked to be bitten most. Vincent's hands snaked around her and he ran his fingers down her back, gripping her buttocks and pulling her tightly against him. His mouth found hers once more as he began tugging her back towards the worktable.

"I'm not hurting, am I?"

She smiled at him. "Not at all."

Vincent nuzzled her neck, leaving great bite marks down to her shoulder. She whimpered in his ear and bit his earlobe.

"The blood will stain," she whispered.

"That's all right with me," he murmured in her ear.

His strong arms came around her and set her up on the table. Vincent stood between her legs as she kissed him, tugging on locks of his hair. He ran his fingertips up her thighs and up underneath her shirt, brushing her nipples with his thumbs. She moaned against his mouth and wriggled as he helped her remove her panties.

"Will you still want me even if I get fat?" Katrina asked playfully.

He rubbed her round, hard belly and smiled as he leaned down to nibble her earlobe. "Even if you're a fat Anne of Cleves."

She giggled into his neck and gasped as his fingers slid down from her navel to her womanhood, stroking her most sensitive parts. Vincent's mouth found hers as he worked her trembling body, not stopping until he felt her cry out and shudder against him. Katrina lay back against the wood of the worktable, her chest heaving with fulfillment, and watched as he readied himself to enter her.

"I love you," she said, moaning as he began his rhythmic motions above her body.

When it was over, Vincent pulled the tired young woman into his arms and held her close.

"I have blood on my feet," Katrina whispered into his ear, making him chuckle.

"What a thing to say after . . ."

She giggled. "Mop up blood while makin' love, that's gonna be my new motto. But really, it's kinda gross. Let me wash my feet and I'll help you with that one."

Vincent brought a bucket of water over to her and helped her wash the blood off. "You don't need to do anything. Why don't you . . ."

"Rest?" She smirked and pushed herself off of the table. "I think not. Anyway, I can at least help you carry the head." Grinning, Katrina picked the young man's head off the ground, grasping a handful of dark hair. "He's kind of nerdy, isn't he?"

Vincent shrugged and walked over to grab the boy's ankles so he could drag him into the room. He didn't like when she scrutinized other males, but it wasn't as if the one he was dragging could be a threat.

"I bet his name is Dexter or something like that," Katrina mused as she laid the head down on the worktable. "Certainly nothing sexy, like Vincent."

He smiled at her and she grinned back.

"At the rate we go at it, babe," Katrina continued, "we're going to end up parents of an entire soccer team or something."

"I don't mind, so long as you're safe," Vincent replied as he began to stitch the boy's head back onto his body.

Katrina recognized the beginnings of genius, so she amused herself by watching the home video from the video camera Vincent had brought back the night before.

"Babe," she said after a while, "did you know there are others, besides the one you've already done and that girl? There's a blonde Barbie, a black guy, and another guy with really short hair."

Vincent looked up. "I saw them last night. The short haired one came with him," he said, pointing at the boy on the table. "So the other two are probably out at that camp." His brow furrowed in thought. "Bo's probably with the redhead right now, so he's not going anywhere soon. I'll have to go get the others."

"Bo and redheaded chicks . . . I don't see why _you _have to go. Wait 'til they come here looking for the others."

He smiled and touched her belly. "I don't want to risk them calling the authorities out here. I want them dead. But first, I'm going to take you up to our room. I want you to . . ."

"Rest, I know," Katrina sighed, taking his arm.


	42. Chapter 42

_**Chapter 42: **__This One's Different_

Katrina followed Vincent through the tunnel into the Sinclair house and up into his father's study.

"God damn it, Vincent!" she exclaimed as she stepped in more blood right in front of the door.

He shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "I'll clean it up, Kitty. Don't worry."

She giggled and pressed her forehead into his chest. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," Vincent answered, holding her tightly. "Come on." After leading her up to their room, he kissed her again. "Do you want anything? Ice cream?"

"No, I don't need to get any fatter," she said crossly as she threw herself on the bed.

He sighed at her sudden mood swing and went to kiss her forehead, then her nose. Katrina smiled up at him as he straightened up and pulled his mask from his pocket.

"Make sure Bo doesn't hear you taking the truck," she commanded. "You know he's going to be pissed at you going out there."

"They need to be taken care of now, Kitty," he reminded her. "You know that."

She nodded and waved at him as he went out the door. Her thoughts turned to worrying about giving birth, as they always did when she was alone, until she began to doze.

It wasn't long before Katrina was shocked out of sleep by the front door slamming loudly, rattling her window. After jumping in fright, she snuggled down into her covers, thinking the men were back from their killing spree. But something just felt wrong. She sighed and wiggled further down into the soft blanket, wondering why she kept worrying so much. The sound of something crashing downstairs made her jump again and she sat up in bed.

"Katrina!" she heard Bo shout. The tone of his voice made her realize something was terribly wrong. She pulled herself up from the bed and hurried downstairs as quickly as her pregnant body would allow.

Turning the corner into the kitchen, she gasped loudly, pressing herself against the refrigerator in horror. There were arrows sticking out of Bo's body.

"What the fuck are you waiting for, woman? Don't just fucking stand there, help me!"

She hurried over to him, gagging at the sight of the embedded arrows.

"P . . . pull it out . . ." Bo coughed, holding out his arm. "Fucking pull . . . the fuck . . . pull it out."

Katrina grasped the arrow by its shaft and pulled as hard as she could. It made a sickening slick sound as it came out. Bo threw his head over the sink and threw up violently. She grasped his good arm, wanting to console him, but he shoved her away.

"Get me somethin' to tie around it!"

She wet the strip of cloth she used to dry clean dishes and wet it before tying it around the wound tightly. Blood trickled out everywhere, staining the white cloth a dark red and dripping to the floor with sickening plops.

"Well?" Bo roared. "Pull this other fucking one out!"

Katrina swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and gripped the arrow in his chest. She tried to pull it out, but he only began throwing up again. "You need a hospital . . ." she whispered.

"Pull it out!" he ordered.

She tried again, but it was no use. "It's not coming."

He pulled clippers out of his pocket and cut off part of the arrow. "Fuck that, Katrina. You're just gonna have to . . ."

Headlights shone in the window, and the noise of a truck pulling into the driveway rumbled through the house.

"What the fuck?" Bo mumbled, limping over to the window.

Katrina took a deep, shuddering breath and sank to the floor of the kitchen, sitting in droplets of Bo's blood. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something moving under the pool table, but was too shook up to figure out just what it was. Vaguely, she heard Bo yelling at someone. Moments later, Vincent came stalking in, his eye blazing with anger. He took one look at Katrina before jerking her up.

"Upstairs. Now!" he growled at her.

She stared at him, not really comprehending. "Bo . . ." she began.

He gripped her arm painfully, murmuring words into her ear. "It's not safe. This one's different. Get upstairs!" He shoved her, hard.

With tears streaming down her face, Katrina obeyed. She sat on the bed, pulling the coverlet between her fingers nervously. It sounded as if the house was being ransacked downstairs. She could hear Bo shouting orders and Vincent's murmured replies. Suddenly, the lights in the house turned off. Katrina screamed and jumped up. She could see the lights of Ambrose flickering out the window. Pulling the curtain back, Katrina watched in confusion as they turned off and on, off and on.

"What the hell . . ." she murmured.

Katrina turned abruptly as someone threw open her bedroom door. It was Vincent.

"They're down in the workshop," he told her. "I want you to stay here, Kitty, no matter what. Understand?"

She could do nothing but nod her head before he slammed the door shut. Her eyes widened when she realized he was locking the door from the outside.

"Vincent!" Katrina cried. "Please, please don't do this!"

"I love you," were the last words she heard.


	43. Chapter 43

_**Chapter 43: **__A Complete Whole_

Sobbing, Katrina banged her fists against the door. "Let me out!" she cried, over and over. "Vincent!" She heard his boots stomp down the stairs and then there was silence. After kicking the door, Katrina began to pace the room.

"My God. My God," she whispered, holding her pregnant belly as if to shield the baby from the terror she felt. "Something bad is going to happen."

Screams from deep within the House of Wax could be heard faintly through her open window. She pressed her face against the glass, trying to see through the darkness, but soon gave up in frustration.

"Mother fucker!" Katrina shouted, kicking the wall. She paced back and forth a few more times before sitting on the bed, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm herself. Closing her eyes tightly, Katrina tried to think of something to do, a way to get herself out of the room. Her eyes widened as she remembered something that had happened months before . . . before she had gotten pregnant.

_She was in the barn with Bo, both of them stripped to their undergarments and sweating profusely as they stoked a huge fire in the fireplace. Katrina wiped a trickle of sweat from her brow as she helped Bo throw the remains of their two latest torture victims . . . two prostitutes from Woodston . . . into the raging inferno. When all the body parts were being consumed, Bo pulled on a set of heavy leather gloves and stuck his tools into the fire to burn off the blood and tissue that no soap and water could ever get clean. _

_Katrina retreated to the coolest part of the barn so she could watch him work and smoke a joint at the same time. As she watched Bo . . . his muscles glistening with moisture, a cruel smirk on his face . . . for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to have _him_, not Vincent, pressing down on her naked body. The thought made her blush. It also made her feel intensely guilty. She closed her eyes, trying to will the flicker of desire away._

_When she opened her eyes, Bo was standing in front of her, a strange look on his face. Hazy and confused, drugged out of her mind, Katrina opened her arms and Bo walked into them. Their kiss was heated, his fingers slid underneath the sides of her panties and pulled her towards him, she let out a breathy cry into his mouth . . . and then it was over. He looked down at her and his gaze made her blood run cold. It wasn't that they had kissed . . . it was that the man standing before her was Vincent. _

_Vincent, yet not Vincent. _

_It was as if they were really one person . . . Bo and Vincent. She loved Vincent completely, she was _his_, but the reality was that her heart was entwined with them both. She wasn't really just Vincent's. She was also Bo's. Just as the twins both belonged to her. Together, the three of them made a complete whole._

_It didn't make much sense to her, but that was what her marijuana-ridden mind came up with. _

_She realized he was still looking at her. Bo grinned, and she knew that somehow, some way, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Without another word, he went back to his fire and she followed to help. They said nothing for the rest of the day, until they were back in his truck on the way home._

"_Katrina, when the time comes, you have to promise me you won't worry."_

"_What?" she asked, completely confused._

"_When the time comes," he insisted, "you can't worry. When I'm dead, Kitty Kat, you shouldn't worry. 'Cause we'll always be together, you know. You and me and Vincent. Even if one or two of us isn't alive."_

"_What the hell?" Katrina cried. "What are you saying?"_

"_I'm sayin' I'm gonna die one day, Kitty. It'll have somethin' to do with wax, I know. And I'm only tellin' you this 'cause I've been havin' these fucked up dreams. Don't ask, 'cause I ain't gonna tell you what they're about . . . but I just wanted you to know that. That . . . and you were meant to come here. You were meant to live. It's fate, 'cause we're entwined like a fucking spider web."_

_He grinned at her. "I'm glad _I _got to kiss you, for once."_

_And she had smacked him on the arm. _

It had confused her at the time, but for some reason she understood it all now.

Bo was going to die. He had known it, even back then. His thread was about to be cut.

The thought made her physically ill, and she vomited onto the floor. Staring down at the puddle of bile, she realized Bo had said "if one _or two_ of them were dead."

"Vincent!" Katrina screamed. "No. Not both of you!" She ran to the window and began to scream over and over again.

The House of Wax was on fire. And it was melting.

Katrina flew back to the door, banging on it so hard she stripped the skin from her knuckles and arms, leaving them a bloody mess. She ran back to the window and punched through it without thinking, shouting incoherently out into the darkness. The pain from the gashes startled her out of her terrified hysteria and she stared at the House of Wax, watching as smoke billowed from its windows and flames blazed up its walls.

She formed a plan in her head, not thinking of its dangers, and rushed over to her bed to begin knotting her sheets together to make a rope ladder. Blood trickled down her pale hands onto the bedding, but Katrina paid it no heed. When the ladder was done, she pushed the bed over to the window and tied the sheets to one of the wooden legs. She had one leg out of the window when she realized that the sheets were too short, it was too far a jump for her to make without breaking something. And she remembered something else, something that made her gasp.

"The baby . . ." she whispered, clutching her stomach. "I can't risk the baby."

A loud creaking sound filled her ears, a chilling, terrible noise that echoed throughout the little town. She looked up and gasped in horror as she saw the House of Wax cave in.

"My God, Vincent!"

Katrina took two steps backward, her fingers pressed against her lips. With a choking cry, she grabbed the lamp from the nightstand and began trying to beat down the door. The acrid smell of burning wax and flesh made her gag as she hit the door over and over. When it became apparent that the lamp would do no good, Katrina sank to her knees in defeat. She gripped her hair in her hands and began to sob as she hit her head on the door. Suddenly she sat up straighter, her eyes wide.

There was someone in the house.

Katrina pulled herself up and pressed her ear against the wall to hear better. She could hear footsteps coming up the stairs, along with soft muttering. Before she could call out for Bo or Vincent, someone began banging on her door. And somehow, she knew it wasn't any of the Sinclair brothers.

"Shit . . ." she whispered, reaching for her knife.

But it wasn't there.

Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered that Vincent had taken her knife when he had pulled her up the stairs to lock her in the room.

Katrina took a deep breath and whispered the only words that could comfort her.

"A complete whole. We are a complete whole and no one can break us apart."


	44. Chapter 44

_**Chapter 44: **__Rescued by the Enemy_

The banging grew louder and Katrina took a few steps back.

"We know you're in here," a male cried. "It's okay. We won't hurt you."

She heard mumbling, as if they were arguing about something.

"But what if she's . . ." a female whispered.

"Then why's she locked in?" the male asked. "If she's with them? And you saw how they . . ."

"I know!" the female whispered roughly. "All right!"

"My name's Nick," the male shout. "I'm here with my sister, Carly. We'll get you out, don't worry. We won't hurt you, all right? I'm going to go find something to break down the door."

Katrina scurried backward to press herself against the wall behind her, as far away from the door as possible. "My God," she whispered, over and over again. "Where are they?" Her gaze was torn between the door and the flickering light out the window. "Vincent, Bo, Lester . . . please help me."

"Stand back, I've got an axe!" Nick called to her, and her hand moved automatically to where her knife should have been.

"I should kill them . . ." Katrina whispered. "I should kill them. Why did you do it, Vincent? Why did you leave me here, lock me up, take my knife? You left me helpless." Tears trickled down her cheeks, and she began to pray under her breath.

The door split in two and she got her first up-close look at the siblings. She recognized them from the video camera: the reddish-haired girl and the boy that had broken Bo's truck light. As her eyes flicked frantically from one to the other, the siblings scrutinized Katrina warily. When she made no movement, Nick came forward, stepping cautiously towards her.

"I knew it!" Carly cried. "I knew I saw someone up here! It's her, Nick. The girl we saw when we were at the church!" She flew at Katrina, arms outstretched. "It was you, wasn't it? What have you done to all those people here?" Her voice rose into a shriek.

Her brother put a steadying arm out to keep her from attacking Katrina. "She's a victim as much as us, Carly! Can't you see that? Look at what they've done to her!"

As the two began to argue, Katrina shuddered in fright and dropped to the floor, feeling faint. Nick hurried to her and helped her up, while Carly eyed her warily.

"My God!" Nick exclaimed.

Katrina looked down. The robe she had been wearing had slipped off her shoulders to reveal the bite marks Vincent had given her earlier.

"I told you she's a victim!" Nick said.

Carly nodded, pressing her fingers to her lips in horror.

The look that passed between the siblings wasn't lost on Katrina, and for some reason it was that, more than anything else, that made her realize her danger.

"_They think I'm a prisoner . . ." _she thought. _"They can't find out the truth, not yet at least. I need a plan . . ."_

She tried to think as Nick and Carly began to pull her towards the door, but her hold on sanity was slipping away rapidly.

"We have to get out of here," Carly said as she helped drag Katrina out of the room.

Katrina's distraught mind could center on only one thing. "My lily," she mumbled, grabbing the necklace from the nightstand.

"Come on!" Nick insisted, tugging her hand. "You can come out. They're gone. Dead. They can't hurt you again."

She was too shocked to do anything else but follow him.

"What's your name?" he asked quietly as he pulled her down the stairs.

Her terrified eyes met his for a brief second. "The black lily . . ." she began, her voice a hoarse whisper.

"What?" Nick asked. "Lily?"

Katrina began to stammer, looking like she was going to lose it at any second.

"It's okay," Nick insisted, touching her cheek gently. "You're safe now, Lily. I'm going to get you out of here. They'll never hurt you again."

"Vincent . . ."

"He's gone. He can't do anything to you anymore. Carly killed him. She killed them both."

Nick took the strangled gasp she emitted from her pale lips as one of shock, not heartbreak. Her frantic blue eyes and delicate condition made him feel protective of her, as he was for Carly.

"_She could _be _Carly," _he thought. _"If Bo was able to kill me, if no one would have rescued her, Carly could be in Lily's position."_

Carly's gaze met his and he could tell she knew what he was thinking. His sister made the shape of a pregnant belly over her stomach and pointed at Katrina.

"_Do you think she was pregnant before they captured her?" _she mouthed.

Nick closed his eyes and tightened his grip around Katrina's shoulders. _"How should I know?"_ he mouthed back.

Carly shrugged worriedly as they made their way down into the living room.

"Dead?" Katrina croaked, out of nowhere.

"Yes, they're dead. I'm positive. They were dead before the wax melted on them," Carly answered in a slow, careful tone, as if she were talking to a child.

"_He knew. He knew it would be through wax . . ."_

Katrina saw everything through a haze of pain . . . the blurred pictures of the Sinclair family on the walls, Bo's filthy work boots kicked recklessly into a corner, Trudy's old rooster and hen salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table, Vincent's sketch book on the couch, Lester's bag of laundry beside the front door. All the things that were her life, all the little pieces of the puzzle that made her existence whole . . . all were being taken from her. It was hard when she realized . . . slowly . . . that she would never look upon the pictures again, never hear Bo stomp through the house in those boots any longer, never feel the chipped wing on the hen pepper shaker press against her fingertip. She would never see Vincent sketch in that book ever again, never complain about how hard Lester was on his clothes.

She burst into wild sobbing, tearing at Nick's shirt as he grabbed her and pulled her tightly against his chest. He held down her arms, an easy feat since she was so weak from exhaustion and shock.

"Lily, everything will be okay."

"No," Katrina sobbed as they walked into Ambrose, "it will never be okay again."


	45. Chapter 45

_**Epilogue: **__The Black Lily_

The three had barely took a few steps into the main street of Ambrose when it was filled with the lights of fire engines and police cars. Katrina looked around wildly for a place to hide, but it was too late. Before she knew what was going on, Carly was dragging her away and Nick was explaining things to the police. Seconds later, she was being bundled into the ambulance along with her enemies. Katrina said nothing, realizing that her and the baby's safety would rely on the choices she would now make. And as much as she wanted to slit the throats of the two sitting in front of her, to do so would place her in a jail instead of a hospital. She choked back a sob and allowed the EMT's to look her over.

She vaguely heard them ask her questions, such as if she had been raped and if she knew she was pregnant. They asked her the date of her last period and whether or not she had any other medical conditions. Katrina ignored all of them and settled her gaze on a box of gauze hanging on the ambulance wall. She sank back into her blanket as the first rays of dawn began to appear over the horizon. The EMT's left her alone and Katrina covered her face with the blanket so she could cry privately. Her exhaustion got the better of her and she dozed off for a few minutes, waking only when she heard Nick, Carly, and the EMT's talking about her.

"Do either of you know who she is?" the female EMT asked.

"No. She wouldn't say a word to us," Carly said quietly.

"I think her name is Lily," Nick murmured.

"What do you mean?" asked Carly.

"She said something to me before . . . something about a black lily. She was holding that necklace. When I asked her what she meant, she pressed it against her chest and said Lily."

"The Black Lily. Then that's what we'll call her. It fits, you know. She's as pale as a lily, and her hair's sure black," the male EMT said with a dry laugh.

Nick glared at the EMT's lame attempt at humor, while his sister patted Katrina's hand.

With a jolt, the ambulance began to move. Katrina sat up quickly as it began to drive away from everything and everyone she had come to love. Her tear filled eyes looked out the window to take one last look at Ambrose. She gasped as the vehicle passed Lester's run down old truck.

Lester was sitting on the bed, watching the ambulance drive by. His eyes reflected pain and worry, but he gave her a reassuring smile before he was out of view.

Katrina grasped her black lily with her sweaty hand.

"Vincent . . ."

_A/N: I'm sure you all hate me for the ending of this story! Such a mean way to end! But . . . guess what? I've decided that if enough of you REALLY want it, I'll write the sequel. Thanks to all of you who read and reviewed! _


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